The High Court refused Williams Ugbo and Ann Buckley leave to challenge a deportation order against Mr Ugbo, and refused their application to add new grounds about the risk of his return to Nigeria.
Mr Justice Hanna delivered the judgment on 5 March 2010 in judicial review proceedings. The applicants sought to challenge the Minister for Justice’s decision to make the order, and to amend their grounds following the Supreme Court’s judgment in *Meadows*.
Mr Ugbo, a Nigerian national, had unsuccessfully sought asylum. In submissions to the Minister, he said he had been assaulted in Nigeria after reporting pipeline vandalism and feared further harm. The judgment noted that the asylum papers were not before the court. The couple also made submissions about their marriage and family life: Ms Buckley is an Irish citizen, and they married in Galway in June 2009.
The court held that the proposed refoulement grounds were new and required an extension of the statutory 14-day time limit. The applicants needed an extension of about 10 weeks. The judge found their explanation insufficient, noting that the grounds could have been raised earlier and that the submissions to the Minister on refoulement had been brief and unsupported by country information. He concluded, at this preliminary stage, that the case was distinguishable from *Meadows* and that the reasons for the Minister’s conclusion could be discerned from the decision and file memorandum. The court refused permission to amend the grounds.
On the remaining issue, the applicants argued that the Minister had failed to address their rights under Article 41 of the Constitution, particularly the protection of marriage. The judge found that the Minister knew of the marriage and had considered the couple’s family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court held that the applicants had not established substantial grounds to challenge the decision on that basis. It also rejected an argument about the expectation that Ms Buckley could move to Nigeria, because details of the difficulties she said she would face had not been put to the Minister when he made the decision.
The court therefore refused leave for judicial review. It did not quash the deportation order. The judgment noted that information later included in Ms Buckley’s affidavit might support an application to the Minister to revoke the order under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999, but expressed no view on how such an application should be decided.