Minister for Justice and Equality v SAS and Minister for Justice and Equality v AAS
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | O'Donnell J.,Dunne J.,Charleton J. |
| Judgment Date | 11 July 2019 |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] IESCDET 171 |
| Court | Supreme Court |
| Date | 11 July 2019 |
[2019] IESCDET 171
THE SUPREME COURT
DETERMINATION
O'Donnell J.
Dunne J.
Charleton J.
IN THE MATTER OF SECTION 21 OF THE REFUGEE ACT 1996
| COURT: Court of Appeal |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT OR RULING: 2nd October, 2018 |
| DATE OF ORDER: 2nd October, 2018 |
| DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 8th March, 2019 |
| THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL WAS MADE ON 27th March, 2019 AND WAS IN TIME. |
The general principles applied by this court in determining whether to grant or refuse leave to appeal, having regard to the criteria incorporated into the Constitution as a result of the Thirty-third Amendment, have now been considered in a large number of determinations and are fully addressed in both a determination issued by a panel consisting of all of the members of this court in B.S. v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2017] IESCDET 134, (Unreported, Supreme Court, 6 December 2017) and in a unanimous judgment of a full court delivered by O'Donnell J. in Quinn Insurance Ltd. v. PricewaterhouseCoopers [2017] IESC 73, [2017] 3 I.R. 812. Accordingly, it is unnecessary to revisit the new constitutional architecture for the purpose of this determination.
Furthermore, the application for leave filed and the respondent's notice are published along with this determination (subject only to any redaction required by law), and it is therefore unnecessary to set out the position of the parties in any detail. No aspect of this ruling has precedential value as a matter of law.
These cases concern identical decisions made by the respondent Minister pursuant to s. 21(1)(h) of the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended) (‘the 1996 Act’) to revoke the refugee status granted to the applicants pursuant to recommendations made on appeal by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal (‘the RAT’) on 24 July 2006. At the time the applicants entered Ireland they were unaccompanied teenagers. The ground of revocation was the Minister was satisfied that the applicants had provided information during the asylum process that was false and misleading.
The basis for the Minister's decision emerged from an investigation carried out when one of the applicants sought a declaration of citizenship in 2011. The information which emerged as a result of inquiries made was that the fingerprints of the applicant matched those of a Tanzanian citizen. The applicant had sought refugee status on the basis that he was a Somali national. A further investigation had the same outcome in respect of the other applicant. It should be said that the original application for refugee status was refused by the Office of the Refugee Appeals Commissioner (‘the ORAC’) on the grounds of credibility but was granted on appeal by the RAT.
The applicants were informed by the Minister of a proposal to revoke their declarations of status as a refugee. Each applicant was given the opportunity to make representations and availed of it through the services of a solicitor. There was a comprehensive exchange of submissions and information. Ultimately the applicants were informed of the Minister's decision to revoke the declaration in July 2012. The applicants invoked their right to appeal to the High Court against the decision pursuant to s. 21(5) of the 1996 Act. The High Court (Stewart J.) dismissed the appeal (see [2017] IEHC 163), and the Court of Appeal (Hedigan J.; Birmingham P. and Edwards J. concurring), in turn, dismissed the appeal against the decision of the High Court (see [2018] IECA 303).
The applicants now seek to appeal to this court and identify the...
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