The applicant, a national of Georgia, applied for international protection in Czechia, claiming that he had faced discrimination and attacks in Georgia due to his homosexual orientation. On 21 February 2023, the Ministry of the Interior (the ministry) refused to grant the applicant international protection. The applicant challenged that decision before the Municipal Court in Prague, which annulled it on 15 November 2023 and remitted the case for re-examination. The ministry's cassation complaint was rejected as inadmissible by the Supreme Administrative Court on 6 May 2024. The ministry then issued a second refusal decision on 6 November 2024, which the Regional Court in České Budějovice annulled on 24 February 2025, and a third refusal decision on 16 June 2025, which the Regional Court in České Budějovice annulled on 16 September 2025. The ministry lodged a cassation complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court.

By decision of 30 March 2026, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the ministry's cassation complaint as unfounded and thus upheld the Regional Court's judgment of 16 September 2025. The Supreme Administrative Court noted the “benefit of the doubt” principle, according to which, where a violation of fundamental rights is plausible, doubts that cannot be resolved must be assessed in favour of the applicant. The court also recalled that asylum decision-making operates with a “reasonable likelihood” standard, meaning that if it is at least reasonably likely that the applicant's account is truthful, it cannot be treated as not credible. The court also referred to the EUAA (formerly EASO): Evidence and credibility assessment in the context of the Common European Asylum System (2018), which sets out credibility assessment criteria including internal and external consistency, sufficient detail, and plausibility.

The Supreme Administrative Court agreed with the Regional Court that the evidence admitted more than one reasonable interpretation and that the ministry had failed to refute the applicant's claimed homosexual orientation. The Supreme Administrative Court held that the ministry must apply the reasonable likelihood standard and take into account the plausibility of the account. The applicant had consistently maintained that he left Georgia because of his homosexual orientation and the conditions faced by LGBTQI persons there, and nothing in the file made his account not credible in a decisive way. The Supreme Administrative Court agreed with the Regional Court's decision for the ministry to reassess the case in line with the binding legal opinion expressed in its previous judgment, meaning that if ministry could not gather sufficient evidence to disprove the applicant's credibility, it had to apply the benefit of the doubt principle, treat the account as reasonably likely, and therefore consider it credible.

In conclusion, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the ministry's cassation complaint, upheld the Regional Court's judgment of 16 September 2025 annulling the ministry's decision, leaving the case to be re-examined by the ministry.