International Protection: A Risk of Persecution Can Coexist with Effective State Protection

1. Introduction

This judgment concerns the relationship between an accepted risk of religious persecution and the availability of effective protection in an applicant’s country of origin. It also examines whether the International Protection Appeals Tribunal must expressly discuss every item of country-of-origin information submitted to it.

The three applicants were a Georgian married couple and their daughter, who was born in Ireland. Their international protection claims arose from violence and threats associated with the parents’ membership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Tribunal accepted the central account of religiously motivated violence and acknowledged a prospective risk of persecution or serious harm. Nevertheless, it refused refugee status and subsidiary protection because it considered effective state protection available in Georgia.

The High Court dismissed the challenges. Its central holding was that an initial finding of persecution risk does not logically or legally exclude a subsequent finding of effective state protection. The judgment principally reaffirms and applies existing authority, rather than creating a new protection test. Its additional significance lies in its treatment of historical European Court of Human Rights decisions used as factual country information.

2. Background and the Tribunal’s Decisions

The father converted from the Georgian Orthodox Christian faith to the Jehovah’s Witnesses in May 2022. The Tribunal accepted that his father assaulted him and expelled him from the family home following the conversion, and that his business partner excluded him from their joint business.

The Tribunal also accepted evidence of further religiously motivated assaults, hospital treatment, threatening messages from neighbours and another assault shortly before the parents left Georgia. Two incidents had been reported to the police. Officers attended, took reports and opened investigations, although the father could provide little identifying information about the attackers.

The parents arrived in Ireland in November 2023. Their daughter was born there in August 2025, after their protection applications had been submitted. Her application was therefore processed separately.

The Tribunal accepted the father’s account of past persecution and recognised religion as the relevant Convention ground. Applying section 28(6) of the International Protection Act 2015, it treated the previous persecution as a serious indication of a well-founded fear or real risk of serious harm.

It then considered state protection. Georgia’s designation as a safe country of origin formed part of its assessment, but the Tribunal also examined police involvement in the father’s complaints and three United States Department of State reports: two from 2020 and one from 2022.

Those reports described prosecutions for religiously motivated offences against Jehovah’s Witnesses, convictions and improvements in identifying religious intolerance as a criminal motive. One reported prosecution resulted in a conditional prison sentence that was increased on appeal. The Tribunal regarded this material as demonstrating a functioning police and judicial system capable of providing protection.

Accordingly, its final conclusion was that the applicants had not established entitlement to refugee status or subsidiary protection, notwithstanding the accepted history of violence.

3. The Challenges and the Court’s Decision

The applicants advanced two principal grounds:

1. Failure to engage with relevant evidence: the Tribunal had not expressly addressed European Court of Human Rights decisions and a Brill Nijhoff article submitted as evidence of religious persecution and inadequate protection in Georgia.
2. Irrationality: the Tribunal could not consistently find a well-founded fear of persecution or a risk of serious harm while also finding effective state protection available.

They also argued that the daughter’s claim should have been considered with her mother’s application rather than separately.

Barr J. rejected all three arguments:

• The Tribunal’s statement that it had considered the submitted materials encompassed the written submissions containing the disputed sources. Their omission from the narrative reasons did not establish that they had been ignored.
• The historical events examined in the Strasbourg cases substantially reduced their value as evidence of present protection conditions compared with the later country reports.
• Risk and state protection are distinct, sequential questions. Findings accepting the former and establishing the latter are not inherently inconsistent.
• The objection concerning the child’s separate application was outside the permitted grounds and, in any event, identified neither a statutory prohibition nor any substantive disadvantage.

The Court refused all relief in the three proceedings. Final orders and costs remained to be addressed following written submissions.

4. Statutory Framework

4.1 Section 28: Assessment of the evidence

Section 28 of the International Protection Act 2015 requires assessment of the elements advanced by an applicant, including relevant country-of-origin information. The duty extends both to material submitted by the applicant and to relevant information more generally.

Section 28(6) gives particular importance to past persecution, serious harm or direct threats. Such experiences are a serious indication of a well-founded fear or real risk unless there are good reasons to consider that the persecution or harm will not recur. That evidential significance does not, however, eliminate the separate statutory inquiry into available protection.

4.2 Section 31: Effective protection

As explained by the Court, section 31 requires protection to be effective and non-temporary. The inquiry considers whether reasonable preventive steps are taken, including through an effective legal system for detecting, prosecuting and punishing persecutory acts or serious harm, and whether the applicant can access that protection.

The standard is therefore practical, but not absolute. A state need not guarantee that no further attack will occur. Equally, the mere existence of police forces or criminal legislation does not dispense with examining whether the protection arrangements satisfy the statutory requirements.

4.3 Safe-country designation

The Tribunal referred to Georgia’s safe-country designation and applied a presumption of protective capacity in the absence of reliable and convincing contrary evidence. Importantly, its decision did not rest on designation alone: it also considered the applicants’ experiences and evidence of police and judicial responses.

The judgment should not be read as making safe-country designation an automatic answer to an individual protection claim.

5. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

5.1 K (Zimbabwe) v IPAT [2025] 2 ILRM 295

The applicants relied on this decision to emphasise that country information must inform the assessment of an applicant’s account. As described in the judgment, Simons J. had set aside a decision in which credibility was determined before the relevant country information was assessed. Understanding the political context was necessary to evaluate the allegations properly.

Its relevance was the requirement for genuine contextual assessment rather than a conclusion reached independently of the background evidence. Barr J. did not separately analyse or expressly distinguish the case. Nevertheless, the present dispute differed materially: the Tribunal accepted the core narrative, and the contested issue concerned the availability of protection rather than an adverse credibility finding.

5.2 Balz v An Bord Pleanála [2020] 3 IR 751

The applicants invoked this authority for the general requirement that relevant submissions be addressed and that reasons be given where they are not accepted.

The judgment did not disapprove that principle or provide an extended analysis of the decision. Instead, it rejected the factual premise that the absence of express discussion demonstrated non-consideration. The important distinction is between an obligation to engage with material submissions and an obligation to catalogue every supporting document.

5.3 Rana and Ali v Minister for Justice [2024] IESC 46

This authority was central to the Court’s treatment of the evidential challenge. Barr J. understood it to establish that, where a decision-maker states that all submitted material has been considered, that statement is presumed accurate unless an evidence-based reason is advanced for concluding otherwise.

The Tribunal’s list included the applicants’ written submissions, which contained the Strasbourg decisions and the Brill Nijhoff material. Its statement of consideration therefore extended to those sources, even though they were not individually named in its reasons.

The principle is not that a formulaic statement can cure every demonstrable omission. Rather, the challenger must provide an evidential basis for rejecting the statement; silence about an individual document does not necessarily supply that basis.

5.4 E.S. v IPAT [2022] IEHC 613

This decision supplied two substantial strands of reasoning.

First, country information: Siobhán Phelan J. explained that the Tribunal may not selectively use country evidence or ignore relevant favourable material without comment. Conflicting material must be weighed, and the reasons must explain the conclusion sufficiently. That does not require reproducing or narratively discussing every item submitted.

Second, state protection: effective protection is not synonymous with perfect prevention. The question is whether reasonable protective steps exist in practical terms and are accessible to the applicant. It is not necessary to show that crime or corruption has been eliminated or substantially brought under control.

Barr J. applied both propositions: the Tribunal’s reasons were not defective merely because particular sources were unmentioned, and the accepted possibility of further violence did not itself negate effective protection.

5.5 O.M.A. (Sierra Leone) v. The Refugee Appeal Tribunals & Ors [2018] IEHC 370

This authority appeared within the passage from E.S. v IPAT quoted by Barr J. It supported the proposition that a decision-maker need not list every element of an applicant’s case and reject each point individually.

Its role was supporting rather than independent: it reinforced the distinction between considering the evidence and exhaustively narrating it. It did not remove the obligation to address material conflicts.

5.6 G&M V IPAT [2025] IECA 208

The Court of Appeal’s reasoning was decisive on the alleged contradiction between risk and protection. As recounted by Barr J., Butler J. rejected the suggestion that a finding of serious-harm risk implicitly established the absence of state protection where the Tribunal had expressly examined protection and found it available.

The analysis ordinarily proceeds by identifying the feared persecution or harm and then asking whether protection exists against it. The nature of the threat helps determine what protection is required. An otherwise established fear or risk does not confer protection entitlement if adequate state protection is available.

The Court of Appeal acknowledged some circularity in the terminology, but regarded the sequence as logical and consistent with the Qualification Directive and the 2015 Act. Barr J. followed that approach.

5.7 N.G. v IPAT [2023] IEHC 535 and N v IPAT [2026] IEHC 212

The respondents cited these decisions in support of the separate inquiries into risk and state protection. The judgment records their citation but does not explain their facts or individually analyse their holdings. They should therefore be treated as additional authorities relied upon in argument, rather than as separately developed foundations of this judgment.

5.8 European Court of Human Rights decisions

The Strasbourg decisions had a different function. The applicants relied on their factual findings as country information, not to establish a disputed legal interpretation. Barr J. examined the age and subject matter of the underlying events:

The Brill Nijhoff article discussed findings of violations of Article 9, separately and together with Article 14, and failures to respond adequately or investigate impartially. Barr J. did not question the seriousness of those findings. His point was temporal: findings about earlier conditions had diminished usefulness in assessing protection at the time of the Tribunal’s decision.

This was a distinction between judicial authority on law and judicial findings used as evidence of country conditions, not a rejection of the Strasbourg decisions’ legal standing.

6. Analysis of the Court’s Reasoning

6.1 The duty to consider evidence is not a duty to discuss every source

The Court’s conclusion depended on several connected features: the Tribunal expressly stated that it had considered the submitted material; the disputed sources formed part of the written submissions; the applicants’ central account was accepted; and the state-protection conclusion was supported by identified country reports.

Consequently, omission of the Strasbourg cases from the written discussion did not, without more, establish that they had been overlooked.

The qualification is important. The Court repeated the prohibition against selective reliance on country information. Its decision does not authorise a tribunal to avoid a material contradiction simply by asserting that everything was considered. The adequacy of reasons remains dependent on the evidence, the issues and the significance of the allegedly omitted material.

6.2 Temporal relevance mattered more than the formal status of a source

The Strasbourg material was authoritative evidence about the incidents adjudicated upon. But those incidents largely occurred between 1999 and 2001. The US reports addressed later conditions and described actual institutional responses to offences against Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The Court therefore regarded reliance on the reports as reasonable. It also noted that the applicants themselves relied on those reports. The relevant comparison was not simply between “court judgments” and “administrative reports”, but between evidence addressing different periods.

The Court described the reports as recent and reliable relative to the historical material. It did not establish that reports from 2020 and 2022 will necessarily remain sufficient for every later assessment, or that historical patterns can never illuminate current risks.

6.3 Risk and protection answer different questions

The applicants’ irrationality argument treated the initial risk finding as a completed determination of protection entitlement. The Court rejected that approach.

The logical sequence was:

1. Identify the persecution or serious harm that may occur.
2. Assess whether effective, accessible and non-temporary protection exists against it.
3. Determine eligibility in light of both conclusions.

The Tribunal’s initial acceptance of risk was therefore an intermediate assessment. Its eventual conclusion that the applicants’ fears did not establish protection entitlement reflected the additional finding of effective state protection.

This explains why apparently conflicting language in the decision did not make its reasoning irrational when read as a whole.

6.4 Protective effectiveness does not mean guaranteed safety

The prosecution evidence mattered because it demonstrated functioning enforcement mechanisms, not because it proved that every offence was prevented or solved. Police attendance and investigations were also relevant to whether the father could access those mechanisms.

The judgment thus applies a reasonable-protection standard. It does not make the existence of any police response conclusive, nor does it require an applicant to show that a state has failed to prevent all criminality. The question remains whether the protective arrangements meet section 31 in the particular case.

6.5 The child’s separate application

The Court gave both procedural and substantive reasons for rejecting this objection. It had not been included in the statement of grounds or authorised by the grant of leave. In addition, the Act permitted combined consideration but did not require it.

The child’s birth after the parents’ applications explained the separate process, and counsel accepted that it made no substantive difference here. The holding is consequently limited: it does not establish that separate processing can never disadvantage a child or create a procedural problem.

7. Practical Impact and Limits

• Accepted persecution is not necessarily decisive: applicants must also address whether protection against the identified threat is effective and accessible.
• Challenges to evidential consideration require substance: an unmentioned document does not automatically prove non-consideration. Its significance and any contradiction left unexplained matter.
• Historical judgments need a present-day evidential connection: their findings may remain relevant, but their capacity to establish current conditions depends on continuity, later developments and competing information.
• Reasons need not become an inventory: decision-makers must explain material conclusions and engage with significant conflicts, without reproducing every source.
• Protection must remain individualised: safe-country status and general enforcement evidence do not convert the judgment into a universal finding that Georgia protects every religious-minority applicant adequately.
• Procedural grounds should be pleaded: the child-related objection illustrates the importance of identifying challenges within the authorised judicial review grounds.

The High Court reviewed the legality and rationality of the Tribunal’s decisions. It did not make a deportation order or determine that religious persecution had ceased in Georgia. Its conclusion was that the challenged findings were legally permissible on the evidence before the Tribunal.

8. Complex Concepts Simplified

Country-of-origin information (COI)

Evidence about conditions in the country to which an applicant may return, including official reports, research and relevant factual findings in judgments.

Convention nexus

The connection between feared persecution and a recognised refugee ground. Here, that connection was religion.

Refugee status and subsidiary protection

Refugee status concerns qualifying persecution linked to a Convention ground. Subsidiary protection concerns qualifying serious harm where refugee status is not established. Available state protection is relevant to both.

Effective state protection

Reasonable, accessible and enduring protective arrangements—not a guarantee that no harm will occur.

Rebuttable presumption

A starting assumption that can be displaced by evidence. The Court’s acceptance that submitted material had been considered was not an irrebuttable rule.

Irrationality

A legal defect in reasoning, rather than merely a conclusion with which a party disagrees. Here, the two-stage assessment of risk and protection was rational.

Judicial review

Court supervision of a decision’s legality, fairness and reasoning, rather than a fresh determination of the protection application.

9. Conclusion

The judgment confirms that an accepted history and prospective risk of religious persecution can coexist with a lawful finding of effective state protection. Protection eligibility depends on the completed assessment, not the risk finding alone.

It also clarifies the distinction between considering evidence and expressly discussing every source. Historical Strasbourg findings remained relevant, but their age reduced their weight as evidence of current protection conditions. On the record before it, the High Court found no unlawful omission or irrationality and refused all relief.

The parties were allowed two weeks to submit observations of no more than 1,000 words on final orders, costs and related matters. The proceedings were listed for mention on 19 November 2026.