According to the summary provided by the EUAA Courts and Tribunals Network:

"The applicant was a Georgian national who claimed that she was in fear of domestic violence. The Tribunal accepted the applicant’s account of suffering physical and psychological violence from her former partner. The Tribunal determined that the applicant had a well-founded fear of persecution, but that state protection was available, relying on the safe country of origin designation.

The Court noted that the Tribunal relied on the concept of safe country of origin and state protection but did not refer to the relevant provisions of the 2015 Act. The Court found there was no requirement to do so but that it was good practice to detail the applicable statutory framework. The Court also noted that the Tribunal had accepted that the Applicant had been subject to acts of past persecution but failed to have regard to the rebuttable presumption. The Court found there was an obligation for the Tribunal to engage with the rebuttable presumption in the circumstances.

The Court noted that the safe country designation requires analysis as to whether serious grounds have been submitted for considering the country is not safe for the individual. The Court found the Tribunal had failed to engage in such an exercise. If the Tribunal found that the applicant’s personal circumstances were such that there were no serious grounds for finding the country was not safe country for her, there would be no requirement for the Tribunal to make a determination of state protection as state protection is by definition available in a safe country.

In considering state protection, the Court expressed approval of the judgment of Barrett J in BC v. IPAT [2019] IEHCC 763 where he set out the following questions to be answered by the Tribunal:

“(1) Does the State in question take reasonable steps to prevent the persecution or suffering of the serious harm feared by a particular applicant?

(2) Do such steps include the operating of an effective legal system for the detection, prosecution and punishment of acts constituting persecution or serious harm?

(3) Is such protection effective and of a non-temporary nature?

(4) Does the particular applicant have access to such protection?”

The Court found that the concept of safe country of origin cannot be used to circumvent an individual and personal consideration of whether state protection was available to the individual applicant. The Court determined that it was unclear how the Tribunal approached the concepts of safe country of origin and state protection. There was material before the Tribunal that could have led to a conclusion that state protection was available but the Tribunal failed to engage in an analysis of the country of origin information.

Certiorari granted."