Background
D.M., a Georgian national, sought international protection in Ireland, claiming that his support for Georgia’s United National Movement led political opponents associated with the Georgian Dream party to threaten and assault him. He said he was attacked in 2021 and 2022, suffering injuries requiring hospital treatment, and that lawyers advised him to leave Georgia.
The International Protection Office rejected the account as not credible, including because D.M. could not answer basic questions about elections and the party activity he claimed. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal affirmed that recommendation on a papers-only appeal. It found his account of political activism and the alleged assaults insufficiently detailed and inconsistent. D.M. sought judicial review.
The Court’s Holding
Ms Justice Cahill granted a six-day extension of time for the judicial-review application. The delay was minimal, crossed a weekend, and caused neither prejudice nor consequential delay.
The Court nevertheless refused to quash the Tribunal’s decision. The Tribunal’s references to D.M.’s time in France, the lack of detail about medical treatment and recovery, and his dealings with lawyers did not amount to new, material credibility concerns that fair procedures required the Tribunal to put to him. They were ancillary or supplemental points arising from his own evidence and supported the same broad conclusions already reached by the IPO: that his claimed political activism and politically motivated assaults were not credible.
Key Takeaways
- A papers-only IPAT appeal still requires fair procedures where a genuinely new and material credibility concern emerges.
- IPAT may, however, place a different emphasis or add nuance to the same evidence without reopening the case for submissions.
- Findings based on an applicant’s own evidence that are incidental to already-established credibility concerns need not be specifically put to the applicant.
Why It Matters
The decision applies the Court of Appeal’s fair-procedures guidance in B.W. and the High Court’s approach in K.S. It confirms that judicial review is not available merely because IPAT expresses a credibility concern differently from the IPO.
For protection practitioners, the distinction is practical: a new, objectively material issue central to the claim may require an opportunity to respond, but additional observations supporting the same adverse credibility conclusion ordinarily will not.