Ireland - Nawaz v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ireland and the Attorney General 2014 IESC 30

Facts:

The applicant claimed that he was entitled to have his subsidiary protection application decided separately and he did not want to first seek refugee status as required in the Irish asylum procedure.  He was previously refused judicial review at the High Court on this principled point and leave was sought from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sought a preliminary ruling from the CJEU in C-604/12.

This case is the subsequent proceedings to that ruling. 

Decision & reasoning:

This Supreme Court ruling follows the preliminary reference ruling by the CJEU in C-604/12 where the question asked was answered in the negative by the CJEU but with a proviso: “Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refuges or as persons who otherwise need international protection and the content of the protection granted, the principle of effectiveness and the right to good administration do not preclude a national procedural rule, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which an application for subsidiary protection may be considered only after an application for refugee status has been refused, provided that, first, it is possible to submit the application for refugee status and the application for subsidiary protection at the same time and, second, the national procedural rule does not give rise to a situation in which the application for subsidiary protection is considered only after an unreasonable length of time, which is a matter to be determined by the referring court.”

The Supreme Court held that the only final question was the application of the ruling of the CJEU to the facts of the judicial review proceedings. The Court also had to decide what order it should make to resolve the proceedings between the parties.

With regards to this last point the Court highlighted that the applicant had sought an order of certiorari of the ministerial refusal to consider his application for subsidiary protection. However, post the CJEU ruling the Court found that that refusal was lawful and that the applicant had failed to claim asylum at any time. It was not possible to say definitively or not whether Irish law precluded a simultaneous application for asylum and subsidiary protection in 2009.

As for the requirement to not have undue delay in the CJEU ruling with respect to the examination of the subsidiary protection claim, the Supreme Court held that the delay in this case was linked entirely to the judicial review proceedings on a point of law submitted by the applicant. The Court also noted that the applicant never participated in the asylum system, therefore the only appropriate order was to dismiss the applicant’s appeal. 

Outcome:

The appeal was dismissed. 

Subsequent proceedings:

N/A.

Observations/comments:

This case was discussed on the blog of the Supreme Court of Ireland at the following link: https://scoirl.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/nawaz-v-mjelr-state-can-refuse-application-for-subsidiary-protection-where-no-application-was-made-for-asylum/

The case is available here.