The High Court dismissed an Algerian man’s challenge to the refusal of his subsidiary protection appeal, while extending the time allowed for him to bring the judicial review proceedings.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered judgment on 23 July 2019. The applicant, identified in the judgment as F.B. (Algeria), sought an order quashing the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision rejecting his appeal. The court dismissed the proceedings; it did not grant the requested order quashing that decision.
The applicant said a brother had been arrested and disappeared in Algeria in 1994 because of his association with the Front Islamique du Salut. Another brother was granted asylum in Ireland in 2001. The applicant arrived in Ireland in 2008 and applied for asylum, but his initial application did not mention an arrest or torture. His asylum application and subsequent appeal were refused. A deportation order was made in 2012, and a request to revoke it was refused in 2017.
He applied for subsidiary protection in September 2017. The deportation order was revoked the following month pending the protection process. The International Protection Office refused his subsidiary protection claim in January 2018. After an oral hearing, the tribunal rejected his appeal on 23 August 2018.
The judicial review application was filed on 3 October 2018, slightly outside the time limit. The respondents did not challenge the explanation for the delay, and the judge extended time to the filing date. The applicant dropped two of his original grounds. The court considered his remaining arguments that the tribunal had acted irrationally in assessing the risk from his illegal exit from Algeria, his claimed connection to his brother, and country information about Algeria.
On the illegal-exit issue, the judge said the tribunal had noted that the applicant himself did not claim to face severe punishment for leaving illegally and had considered country material. On the family connection, the judge said the tribunal had considered inconsistencies in the applicant’s evidence, including the absence of an arrest or torture account in his earlier interview. The judge also noted that the tribunal had acknowledged that the brother who regularly returned to Algeria did so on an Irish passport. The tribunal member who heard the applicant was better placed to assess his credibility, the judgment said, and the assessment fell within the range of reasonable views open to the tribunal.
The judge also rejected the challenge to the tribunal’s assessment of country information. He referred to European and Irish decisions discussing conditions in Algeria. The court’s order extended time and dismissed the proceedings.