R S v Chief International Protection Officer

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Supreme Court
• Judge: O'Donnell J.,McKechnie J.,Charleton J.
• Judgment Date: 26 June 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] IESCDET 156
• Date: 26 June 2019

IN THE MATTER OF THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (TRAFFICKING) ACT 2000 (AS AMENDED)

BETWEEN

R S

APPLICANT

AND

CHIEF INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION OFFICER

AND

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND EQUALITY

RESPONDENTS

AND

INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION APPEALS TRIBUNAL

NOTICE PARTY

[2019] IESCDET 156

O'Donnell J.

McKechnie J.

Charleton J.

THE SUPREME COURT

DETERMINATION

APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL TO WHICH ARTICLE 34.5.3° OF THE CONSTITUTION APPLIES

RESULT: The Court does not grant leave to the Second Named Respondent / Applicant to appeal to this Court from the Court of Appeal

REASONS GIVEN:

ORDER SOUGHT TO BE APPEALED

COURT: Court of Appeal

DATE OF JUDGMENT OR RULING: 19 th October, 2018

DATE OF ORDER: 1 st November, 2018

DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 24 th January, 2019

THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL WAS MADE ON 13 th February, 2019 AND WAS IN TIME.

1 The respondent is an Algerian national whose application for a declaration of refugee status and for a subsidiary protection declaration has been the subject of an adverse recommendation made under s.39(3)(c) of the International Protection Act 2015.

2 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.

3 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.

4 On 6 June 2018, R.S. lodged an appeal against the adverse subsidiary protection recommendation with the notice party, the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (‘IPAT’), without prejudice to his contention that the decision of the Chief International Protection Officer (‘CIPO’) was invalid because no lawful examination of his subsidiary protection application had been carried out by the officer concerned because a panel of contractors had been employed by the office in making recommendations under the 2015 Act.

5 The issue arising in the case had been the subject of a judicial review application in a number of cases, which became known as I.G. v. Refugee Application Commissioner [2018] IESC 25 (Unreported, Supreme Court, 16 May 2018) (‘the I.G. cases’). The High Court in that matter ( G.I. v. Minister for Justice & Ors. [2015] IEHC 682 (Unreported, High Court, Humphreys J., 6 ^th November, 2015)) had refused to grant leave to seek judicial review, but the Supreme Court reversed that decision. Accordingly, leave was granted to pursue the point. This case concerns one of a number of other cases raising the same point.

6 It is clear that the point raised in the I.G. cases, and raised in this case, is a systemic one: it applies to all cases processed in the same way by the International Protection Office. In the light of the I.G. cases, the High Court in this matter ( N.A. v. The Chief International Protection Officer [2018] IEHC 499 (Unreported, High Court, Humphreys J., 10 September 2018) (‘the N.A. case’) & I.G.(Albania) v. The Chief International Protection Officer [2018] IEHC 509 (Unreported, High Court, Humphreys J., 17 September 2018)), granted a stay on the processing of the appeal in the test case ( the N.A. case), but the High Court also delivered a considered judgment refusing to order a stay in any of...