The Supreme Court dismissed appeals brought by two families against the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform over deportation decisions. In a judgment delivered on 23 January 2003, Mr Justice Geoghegan said he agreed with the judgments of the Chief Justice and Mr Justice Hardiman that both appeals should be dismissed.
The appeals were brought by David Lobe and other members of his family, and by Andrew Osayande and his minor son, Osaze Joshua Osayande. The judgment identifies the children and their next friends in the case heading. It does not set out the underlying deportation decisions or the court’s orders beyond the dismissal of the appeals.
The appellants relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Fajujonu v Minister for Justice. They argued, among other things, that the particular facts of that case should carry little weight in identifying its legal principles, and that where alien parents had a young Irish citizen child, the Minister could make a deportation order only for reasons specific to those parents, such as criminal misconduct or a security threat.
Mr Justice Geoghegan rejected both arguments. He explained that Fajujonu concerned a family in which the parents had lived in Ireland for an appreciable time and three of the five family members were Irish citizens. The judgments in that case treated those circumstances as relevant to the Minister’s consideration of the family’s constitutional rights. The Minister was not required to consider those rights in a vacuum, he said, but in light of the facts of the particular case.
The judgment also explained that Fajujonu did not establish an absolute right for non-citizen parents to remain in Ireland because their children were citizens. Rather, the Minister could still consider deporting parents, while having regard to the fundamental constitutional rights of the family when exercising that discretion.
Mr Justice Geoghegan referred to Mr Justice Walsh’s view in Fajujonu that it would be beyond the Minister’s powers to disrupt that particular family for no reason other than poverty, especially where the State had effectively caused the poverty by refusing the father a work permit. He emphasised that the earlier case’s facts informed that conclusion.
The judgment reserved for a suitable future case whether judicial review of a ministerial decision is confined to the standard described in O’Keeffe v An Bord Pleanála. That question was not decided in these appeals.