{"id":165263,"date":"2025-11-29T02:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/165263\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T02:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:03:07","slug":"buddhist-monk-left-in-limbo-over-lack-of-progress-in-refugee-process-high-court-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/165263\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddhist monk left \u2018in limbo\u2019 over lack of progress in refugee process, High Court told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Tibetan<\/a> Buddhist monk seeking asylum in Ireland has been left \u201cin limbo\u201d by the State, which is refusing to give him an extension of time to lodge an appeal against its rejection of his claim for asylum, the High Court<\/a> has been told.<\/p>\n

The man, who cannot be named, claims that he left China<\/a> for \u201cpolitical reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n

He says he will be \u201cpersecuted and tortured\u201d should he be sent to China as he is a symbol of Tibetan culture.<\/p>\n

The monk, who attends the Four Courts in full religious robes, has said he is a symbol of \u201cthe Tibetan root of religion and culture\u201d. <\/p>\n

He claims that he was delayed in filing an appeal against the State\u2019s refusal to grant asylum due to extraordinary circumstances when the home of one of his legal team in Sudan<\/a> was bombed.<\/p>\n

At the High Court on Friday, Anthony Hanrahan SC, for the man, told the court that the monk was \u201cin limbo\u201d due to the lack of progress in the case. Mr Hanrahan said there was no deportation order in place and that his client was surviving on \u20ac100 a week.<\/p>\n

Counsel said the case should not be linked to pending judgments in other similar test cases and that progress should be made due to the \u201cunusual and precarious\u201d situation the monk found himself in.<\/p>\n

Mr Justice Anthony Barr adjourned the matter to next week for it to come before Ms Justice Sara Phelan who had previously dealt with the case.<\/p>\n

In papers submitted by his legal team \u2013 Mr Hanrahan with Eoin Heffernan BL \u2013 the monk claims he left Tibet in April 2016 and went to Nepal until September 2024 before arriving in Ireland in October that year, when he applied for international protection.<\/p>\n

In January of this year, his application for asylum was rejected and his intent was to appeal that decision to an appeals tribunal, he claims. The man is taking the action against the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) and the Minister for Justice.<\/p>\n

In April, he was granted leave by the High Court to challenge IPAT\u2019s rejection of his application which was refused under time limit constraints.<\/p>\n

The man submits that a Sudanese legal secretary of his legal team was preparing a notice of appeal but received notification that her family home in Sudan had been destroyed by an air strike and that a close family friend had been killed in the attack.<\/p>\n

He submits that the woman was left in a state of shock and distress by the news and mistakenly believed she had submitted the notice of appeal in time.<\/p>\n

This, he submits, amounts to extraordinary circumstances over which IPAT could use its power of discretion. In March, IPAT refused an extension of time to file a challenge to deny him asylum.<\/p>\n

IPAT was asked to reconsider the application for the extension of time but told the monk\u2019s solicitors that the application could not be reconsidered and that \u201cthe Tribunal does not have the jurisdiction to accept an appeal which it has already rejected\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Tibetan Buddhist monk seeking asylum in Ireland has been left \u201cin limbo\u201d by the State, which is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[114,73,61,60,43,91893,91892],"class_list":{"0":"post-165263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-high-court","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sudan","14":"tag-tibet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}