The High Court dismissed a Nigerian family’s challenge to the Minister for Justice and Equality’s refusal to revoke their deportation orders, and released the Minister from an undertaking not to deport them.
In a judgment delivered on 12 March 2019, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the family had not shown exceptional circumstances that would justify quashing the refusal. The proceedings sought certiorari of the Minister’s September 2018 decision on the family’s second application to revoke the orders. The court had granted leave for judicial review in January 2019; it now dismissed the proceedings.
The judgment says the mother arrived in Ireland in 2002 and applied for asylum in 2006, giving a false account of when she arrived. The Refugee Applications Commissioner rejected the claim, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejected an appeal in 2007. Deportation orders were made in August 2008. A first application to revoke them was refused in 2009, and that refusal was not challenged.
The family made a second revocation application in March 2015. The Minister refused it by letter dated 19 September 2018. The applicants argued that the decision was disproportionate and failed to address their rights, and that the Minister should have referred to a Supreme Court judgment. The judge found that they had not identified a substantive right that was breached, and said the Minister was not required to narratively discuss every submission or cite every relevant case in deciding whether to revoke an earlier order.
The judge said the Minister could refuse revocation where no new matters had been advanced, subject to issues such as refoulement. He also said the passage of time had been acknowledged in the decision and that judicial review was not an appeal on the merits.
Separately, the judge said that even if the decision had been legally flawed, he would have refused relief in his discretion. He cited the applicants’ evasion of presentation requirements and the mother’s false account of her arrival. The court’s order dismissed the proceedings and released the first-named respondent from the undertaking not to deport the applicants. The judgment did not itself make a new deportation order.