The High Court refused an asylum seeker’s application for leave to seek judicial review of his transfer from a Waterford accommodation centre to Longford and of the handling of his complaints about food and hygiene.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered the judgment on 15 January 2016. The applicant, identified as Z.K., had arrived in Ireland from Algeria in March 2014. His asylum application was refused in June that year, but his appeal remained outstanding.
He had lived at Viking House, a privately run direct provision centre in Waterford, since arriving. The judgment records that he received five written warnings about his behaviour, the last dated 15 October 2015. A report from the centre manager on 14 December alleged that Z.K. verbally abused the manager and another staff member, then continued abusing the manager and chef in the reception area. The report said the incident was recorded on CCTV with audio. The judge noted that Z.K. did not deny the allegation in his affidavit.
The Reception and Integration Agency wrote the next day to say he would be moved to Richmond Court in Longford to defuse the situation. The judge held that the Agency was entitled to act urgently and that the transfer was an administrative or managerial decision that did not attract fair-procedure rights or judicial review. He also said any claimed prejudice from the move was not established; the court heard that English classes were available in Longford and rejected a suggestion that the applicant had cancer.
The court said the food and hygiene complaints had become moot after the move. It added that, in any event, reviewing food and hygiene at the private accommodation centre was not a public-law matter suitable for judicial review. The judge accepted that outsourcing a public function would not itself prevent judicial review, but found that the complaints in this case did not qualify.
A newspaper reporter had asked to identify the applicant in coverage. The judge said he could not lift the anonymity because it followed from section 19 of the Refugee Act 1996, and no constitutional, EU law or human-rights challenge to that provision had been made.
The court refused leave to seek judicial review and directed the applicant’s solicitors to serve the Chief State Solicitor’s Office with the judgment within seven days.