The High Court refused two applicants permission to bring a judicial review challenge to a deportation order against a Brazilian man, finding they had not established substantial grounds to contest it. The court also ordered that any injunction still in force be discharged from the oral pronouncement of judgment.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered the judgment on 14 November 2016. The applicants were identified as Vilmar da Silva, a Brazilian citizen, and Winnie Scally, an Irish citizen. The judgment said they had been in a relationship since August 2009.
The first applicant had arrived in Ireland on a two-week visitor’s visa in November 2007 and remained after it expired. An application for permission to reside based on the couple’s de facto relationship was refused on 10 December 2012. A deportation order followed on 1 July 2016.
In an affidavit, the first applicant said he believed he would receive permission to remain because he knew other foreign nationals, including Brazilian friends, who had been allowed to stay after more than five years without lawful permission. The applicants sought leave to challenge the deportation order, an injunction and discovery of material about a ministerial policy said to grant permission to long-term immigrants.
The court said the claim that others had been allowed to remain did not give the first applicant an entitlement to do the same. It also said discovery was not appropriate as part of a leave application and generally arose only if leave was granted.
The applicants also challenged the assessment of the first applicant’s economic prospects and private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and alleged that submissions had not been considered. The judge described these grounds as generic and insufficiently specific under the judicial review rules. He found they did not establish substantial grounds to challenge the Minister’s decision.
An interim injunction had been granted on 29 July 2016 and was due to expire on 10 October. The judgment said it appeared to have expired, but ordered that if any injunction remained in force it be discharged from the date the judgment was orally pronounced.
The court refused leave, adjourned the matter to allow the applicants to consider an application for leave to appeal, and directed that any such application be made on notice to the respondents. It also ordered the applicant to serve the Chief State Solicitor’s Office with the judgment forthwith.