The High Court found that Amjad Parvaiz was unlawfully arrested and detained under the Immigration Act 1999 and ordered his unconditional release. The ruling concerned the legality of his detention, not the validity of the deportation order against him.
Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh delivered the judgment on 21 December 2016 in an Article 40.4.2 inquiry. Mr Parvaiz had been arrested on 27 September and detained first at a Garda station and then at Cloverhill Prison. He was on bail pending judgment.
The arresting Garda recorded two grounds for detention: that Mr Parvaiz had not left the State within the period specified in the deportation order, and that he intended to avoid removal. The court considered whether a reasonable person with the information the Garda said he had would have had those suspicions.
The deportation order did not state a departure date on its face. The respondents argued that the date, 8 January 2016, was incorporated into the order by reference to a statutory notice. The judge assumed that legal argument was correct for the purposes of the habeas corpus application, but did not rule on its merits because the proceedings did not challenge the deportation order’s validity.
The Garda’s affidavit referred to a letter from the Minister for Justice dated 8 December 2015, but did not identify it as a notice under section 3(3)(b)(ii) or explain how the departure date was incorporated into the deportation order. The court said there was no evidence that the Garda had found the date in such a notice or had been told it was there. It concluded that the evidence did not fill the gap in the stated basis for detention.
The judge also rejected the second ground. The Garda said Mr Parvaiz had indicated that he did not wish to leave Ireland. The court held that this statement alone could not reasonably support a belief that he intended to avoid removal.
Finding neither stated ground objectively justified, the court ruled the arrest and detention unlawful and ordered Mr Parvaiz’s unconditional release. The judgment did not determine the validity of the deportation order or the respondents’ broader argument about how its departure date could be specified.