The High Court has refused a Brazilian family’s application to quash deportation orders made against seven family members in March 2012. Mr Justice McDermott held that the Minister had considered the children’s welfare and their constitutional and Convention rights. The court did not set aside the orders.
The case concerned two parents and five children who had lived in Roscommon. The children had attended local primary and secondary schools. The family argued that deportation would disrupt the children’s education and social ties, and that the Minister had failed to assess the practical effects of moving them to Brazil. They also argued that the children’s best interests should have been treated as a primary consideration.
The court said the Minister had examined the parents’ files separately and considered each child’s circumstances within a group examination. The children’s ages, family circumstances and school progress had been provided to the Minister. The court noted that the submissions did not give specific evidence of individual difficulties the children would face on return, nor details of their participation in community activities. It said the Minister was generally entitled to assess the material supplied by the applicants and was not required to investigate beyond it except in exceptional circumstances.
Mr Justice McDermott held that the children’s welfare had to be considered as part of a fair deportation process. He concluded that relevant welfare factors had been considered under section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999. He also held that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child did not create directly enforceable rights in Irish law in this case, and that it did not give the applicants a right to have the children’s interests take precedence over every other consideration.
On Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the court accepted that removal could affect the family’s private and family life. It found that the proposed deportation would not split the family unit. On the evidence submitted, the effects on the children’s schooling and social ties did not reach the level of seriousness required to establish an Article 8 breach. The court also found that the Minister’s decision-making was reasonable and that the family had not established that the authorities had acquiesced in their unlawful presence.
The court concluded that the applicants had not shown that the deportation orders were fundamentally flawed. It refused the judicial review application. The judgment does not itself make new deportation orders; it leaves the challenged orders in place.