Facts: The applicants were both Somali nationals who had been granted international protection in Greece and subsequently travelled to Ireland and applied for international protection in the State. Their applications were deemed inadmissible under section 21(9), International Protection Act 2015.
The applicants contested the inadmissibility recommendations on the grounds that conditions in Greece are such that they result in destitution, homelessness and/or extreme material poverty and give rise to a real or serious risk of a breach of their fundamental rights under Article 3 ECHR and/or Article 4 of the Charter. They challenged, inter alia, the adequacy of procedural safeguards in the decision-making process, particularly the lack of an oral hearing for inadmissibility decisions, along with the standard of proof and evidential burden in reviewing risk of harm. The IPO’s inadmissibility recommendations were appealed to the International Protection Appeals Tribunal, which upheld the IPO’s recommendations. The applicants sought judicial review in the High Court.
The two cases were joined and were lead cases for a series of ‘Greek Transfer Cases’.
Reasoning: In the High Court, Phelan J. first recalled the principle of mutual trust between Member States and the presumption that all beneficiaries of international protection will be treated in accordance with the Charter, the ECHR and international human rights law across the EU.
Phelan J. referenced the CJEU decision in Ibrahim (Joined Cases C-297/17, C-318/17, C-319/17 and C-438/17) concerning beneficiaries of international protection. She recalled that the burden of proof lies with the applicant, who must demonstrate that the risk of suffering and ill-treatment if returned will attain a particularly high level of severity. To this end, a high degree of insecurity or a significant degradation of living conditions would be insufficient, unless they entail extreme material poverty to the extent that they are experiencing inhuman or degrading treatment. Moreover, as held in Ibrahim, the risk must be individualised, unless there is a situation where conditions in an EU Member State have broken down so systemically that the beneficiary would experience a breach of their rights merely by their presence in the State, such as in the form of an armed conflict or unprecedented humanitarian crisis, as found in SN (C-563/22).
On the legality of s 21 of the 2015 Act, Phelan J. found that the provision should be interpreted in line with EU law. Thus, the limiting language of s 21 was not found to result in unlawful decision-making. On the right to an oral hearing, Phelan J. recognised that the applicants had a right to be heard. In this regard, she held that the two preliminary interviews conducted as part of the ss 13(2) and 15 stages could be considered as meeting the applicants’ right to be heard. Phelan J. found that the applicants did not point to any actual element of their case that could only be advanced by oral hearing as opposed to documentation.
One of the applicants advanced a constitutional challenge to section 21. On this, Phelan J. recalled that there is also a high evidential threshold to prove that removal from the State would expose the applicant to a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to their fundamental rights under the Constitution. The mere possibility of ill-treatment was held to be insufficient.
Decision: Phelan J. upheld the decisions of the Tribunal. She found that the decisions were properly grounded in and flowed from the assessment of the applicants’ personal circumstances and the absence of any vulnerabilities on their parts, judged in the context of COI in relation to living conditions for beneficiaries of international protection in Greece. The correct burden of proof was applied by the decision maker. An oral stage was provided and no circumstances that would require an oral hearing were established. Thus, the reliefs sought were refused.
