The High Court has refused a Lithuanian national’s application for judicial review of a decision affirming orders for his removal from Ireland and excluding him from the State for three years.
Mr Justice Conleth Bradley delivered the judgment on 29 May 2024. The challenge concerned a reviewed decision made by the Minister for Justice on 23 March 2023, which affirmed removal and exclusion orders made in January 2023 under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015.
The applicant argued that the orders were invalid because they did not themselves specify a deadline for leaving Ireland or a clear start date for the exclusion period. He also challenged the Minister’s reasons for choosing three years and the assessment of his circumstances, including his family and private life and the risk he might reoffend.
The Minister argued that the orders had to be read alongside the notices sent to the applicant. Those notices said he had at least one month to leave and required him to attend the Garda National Immigration Bureau on 27 April 2023 to make removal arrangements. The reviewed-decision notice said the three-year exclusion period would run from the date of removal.
Justice Bradley held that the documents, taken together, clearly explained what the applicant was required to do and when the exclusion period would begin. He found substantial compliance with the prescribed form for the exclusion order, and no basis to conclude that the applicant had misunderstood the orders or the process.
The court also rejected the challenge to the reasons for the three-year period and the Minister’s assessment. It found that the March 2023 file examination addressed the applicant’s private and family life, including relatives in Ireland and his relationship, and considered whether removal and exclusion would be proportionate. The Minister’s assessment of risk, the judge said, relied on the planned nature of the drug-growing operation, rather than conviction alone.
The judgment records that the applicant had been convicted in 2020 of four offences relating to drug cultivation and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, with the final 12 months suspended. That history and the Minister’s assessment were considered in the context of the removal decision; the High Court’s ruling concerned the legality of the reviewed decision, not a new determination of the criminal charges.
The court extended time for bringing the judicial review by three days, but ultimately refused the reliefs sought. It directed that the matter return on 5 June 2024 to address costs and any related matters. The judgment does not determine the costs question.