The High Court has refused an Iranian applicant’s request to quash an International Protection Appeals Tribunal decision upholding his transfer to Sweden, despite finding an error in the tribunal’s reasoning. The court also awarded the respondents 50% of their costs and stayed the transfer order while the applicant may appeal.
The applicant, identified in the judgment only as M, came to Ireland in August 2020 and applied for international protection. A Eurodac inquiry showed earlier applications in Belgium and Sweden in November 2015 and in the UK in July 2020. Sweden accepted Ireland’s request to take him back, stating that it accepted him under Article 18(1)(d) of the Dublin III Regulation.
M argued that Belgium was responsible because it was the first country where he had applied for protection. He contended that Article 3(2) of Dublin III applied and that Ireland had missed the two-month deadline for a take-back request under Article 23. He also challenged the tribunal’s conclusion that Article 3(2) did not apply and that Sweden had not made a take-back request to Belgium.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 20 May 2022, Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan said the tribunal had no evidential basis for concluding that Sweden failed to make such a request. The judgment said the evidence did not establish what Sweden had done. The judge considered that Sweden might have failed to make a request or to complete a transfer, or might have decided to deal with M itself.
That uncertainty did not change the outcome, the judge said. Under the regulation, a failure to meet the relevant take-back or transfer deadlines would make Sweden responsible. The judgment concluded that a default must have occurred between Sweden and Belgium and that Sweden had become the responsible member state by the end of 2016. It also said the regulation did not provide for that responsibility to be lost except in accordance with Dublin III.
The court therefore exercised its discretion not to grant certiorari, refusing M’s application to quash the tribunal’s decision of 30 April 2021. It ordered that the respondents receive 50% of their costs, to be adjudicated if the parties could not agree. A stay and an injunction preventing M’s transfer to Sweden were made for the period in which he may appeal; if an appeal is lodged, they extend to the first directions date before the Court of Appeal.