The High Court has refused a judicial review challenge to the deportation of a Nigerian father of three Irish citizen children, finding that the Minister’s decision was not fundamentally flawed or disproportionate.
In a judgment delivered on 8 April 2014, Mr Justice McDermott said the court’s role was to review the legality and reasonableness of the decision, not to hear an appeal on its merits. The applicants had sought to quash the deportation order made against the father, identified in the judgment as D.M.
D.M. arrived in Ireland in 1999 and was granted permission to remain in 2002 on the basis that he lived with and acted as a parent to his Irish-born son. He and his former partner, C.B., had two more children, also Irish citizens. Their relationship ended in December 2008. D.M. was appointed a joint guardian in 2007, but the children remained in their mother’s primary care. He received weekly access in July 2010.
The Minister began reviewing D.M.’s permission after learning of his Northern Ireland arrest and prosecution. He pleaded guilty in December 2008 to offences including driving and fraud offences and unlawful charitable collection. The judgment records 45 convictions in Northern Ireland and one conviction in Ireland for failing to display an NCT certificate, for which he was fined €150. The Northern Ireland court imposed a six-month suspended prison sentence and a three-year driving ban.
The Minister decided not to renew D.M.’s temporary permission and later made a deportation order. D.M. was deported to Nigeria on 7 February 2011. The applicants argued that the decision failed to give proper weight to the children’s constitutional rights and best interests, their family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the consequences of separation. They also challenged the weight placed on the convictions and argued that less restrictive options were available.
The judge found that the file examination had considered the children’s rights, their family circumstances and the likely effects of separation, as far as the information provided allowed. The judgment noted that D.M. had supplied little information about the children’s education and family life, and no documentary evidence for his claim that two children had been diagnosed as autistic. It also noted that the children had been primarily cared for by their mother and had seen relatively little of their father since July 2008.
The court said the Minister was entitled to treat the convictions, committed over an extended period while D.M. had permission to remain, as relevant to preventing disorder and crime. The judge concluded that the Minister had weighed the family and private life interests against the state’s interests, and that the applicants had not shown the decision was irrational, unreasonable or disproportionate. The judicial review application was refused.