The applicant, an Iraqi national of Kurdish ethnicity, first applied for international protection in Czechia in 2015. He claimed that, while working at a military camp in Iraq, he had met three former officers of the former regime of Saddam Hussein who were linked to the so-called Islamic State and reported them to the Iraqi authorities, which led to their imprisonment. After Islamic State took over the camp and freed the prisoners, these men allegedly began threatening the applicant, giving rise to the fear of retaliation. The Ministry of the Interior (the ministry) granted the applicant subsidiary protection for 24 months due to intense fighting between the Iraqi army and Islamic State at the time. In 2018, the ministry decided not to extend the subsidiary protection, referring to the defeat of Islamic State.

The applicant filed another application for international protection in Czechia in 2019, maintaining that his earlier reasons still applied. The ministry initially rejected the application as inadmissible by a decision of 15 May 2020, which was annulled by the Regional Court in Ostrava on 17 January 2022. The ministry then refused to grant international protection by a decision of 24 November 2022, which the Regional Court annulled on 11 September 2023. The ministry's cassation complaint was rejected as inadmissible by the Supreme Administrative Court on 29 November 2023. The ministry issued a second refusal decision on 16 September 2024, reasoning that the security situation in Iraq had markedly improved, Islamic State had been defeated, and the Iraqi authorities were willing and able to protect the applicant. On 3 November 2025, the Regional Court in Ostrava again annulled the ministry's decision and remitted the case for re-examination. The ministry lodged a cassation complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court.

By decision of 5 March 2026, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the ministry's cassation complaint as inadmissible and thus upheld the Regional Court's judgment of 3 November 2025. The Supreme Administrative Court noted that non-state actors can be perpetrators of persecution or serious harm, in which cases applicants are expected to seek protection primarily from the country-of-origin authorities, provided that such protection is effective and available. The court then recalled that the Regional Court's earlier judgment of 11 September 2023 found that the country-of-origin information (COI) indicated continued asymmetric attacks by Islamic State in Iraq and the Iraqi security forces' inability to prevent them.

The Supreme Administrative Court held that, even if the collected COI suggested an overall improvement in Iraq's security situation, it did not address the specific threat faced by the applicant. The ministry therefore failed to fulfil its obligation to gather COI linked to the applicant's individual circumstances and did not demonstrate – on a properly documented basis – that the applicant did not face threat of serious harm or that the Iraqi authorities could effectively protect him.

The Supreme Administrative Court also highlighted that the Regional Court had already indicated that subsidiary protection should be granted unless the ministry refutes the fear of serious harm. Referring to its own case-law (5 Azs 105/2018-46) and the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Alekszij Torubarov v Immigration and Asylum Office (Bevándorlási és Menekültügyi Hivatal) (C-556/17, 29 July 2019), the Supreme Administrative Court reminded that continued non-compliance by the ministry with the binding legal opinion of the Regional Court could, in light of the right to an effective remedy, lead to an obligation for the administrative courts to grant international protection directly.

In conclusion, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the ministry's cassation complaint, upheld the Regional Court's judgment of 3 November 2025 annulling the ministry's decision, leaving the case to be re-examined by the ministry.