The High Court has refused an Albanian woman’s request for an interlocutory injunction to stop the Minister for Justice from continuing statutory steps following the rejection of her international protection appeal. The court gave her liberty to renew the application if relevant circumstances change.
The applicant is challenging the International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s decision rejecting her appeal. Her judicial review primarily seeks certiorari of that decision. She also sought an order restraining the Minister from refusing protection and reviewing the decision on her leave to remain while the judicial review is pending.
The applicant argued that she would be put through a process beginning with a decision she is challenging, and would have to address refoulement during those proceedings. The respondents submitted that any later adverse decisions based on the IPAT decision would be withdrawn if the applicant succeeds in the judicial review. If she loses, the court said, she would still have to deal with the other statutory processes.
Justice Richard Humphreys said the law generally favours allowing a statutory process to proceed and permitting a challenge to any adverse result, rather than stopping the process before it begins. He said the applicant’s need to amend her proceedings to challenge a later adverse decision was a limited prejudice in the circumstances.
The judge noted, however, that the respondents could give no particular assurance that a deportation order, if made before the judicial review concluded, would not be enforced. He said that would raise different considerations in the balancing exercise.
The court refused the interlocutory stay “at the present time”, while granting liberty to renew the application if relevant circumstances change. The judgment does not determine the underlying judicial review challenge to the IPAT decision.