The High Court has dismissed judicial review proceedings brought by two applicants seeking to remain in Ireland while challenges to refusals of their re-applications for international protection were pending. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled on 16 July 2018 that neither applicant had a right to remain at that stage, and ordered that an existing injunction restraining deportation in one of the cases be discharged.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as P.N.S. (Cameroon) and K.J.M. (Democratic Republic of the Congo), argued that removal should be delayed pending further steps in their cases. P.N.S. also sought to remain while the Minister considered an application for permission to stay based on his Irish citizen child. The proceedings did not challenge the original deportation orders; the court noted that challenges to those decisions were out of time and were not being pursued in P.N.S.’s case.
The judge held that, for the purposes of the relevant EU procedures directive, the International Protection Office’s recommendation was the first-instance decision. The International Protection Appeals Tribunal’s determination was the appeal decision, while the Minister’s later formal refusal was a formality. The right to remain pending a first-instance decision therefore ended when the IPO recommendation was made. It did not continue during an IPAT appeal or a subsequent judicial review. The court said both applicants had already received IPO decisions rejecting their re-applications.
On P.N.S.’s separate argument concerning his child, the judge held that an application to revoke a deportation order does not suspend that order. He also found that the proceedings, framed as a request to prevent enforcement, were subject to the statutory time limit for challenging deportation decisions. Even assuming the claim was not out of time, the birth of a child did not amount to the very exceptional circumstances required to restrain enforcement of an unchallenged deportation order. The court also said the evidence did not establish the extent of P.N.S.’s involvement in the child’s life to a level that would justify an injunction.
The judgment records that K.J.M. had an appeal pending before the IPAT and that he had previously been granted an injunction against deportation. The court concluded that pending appeals and applications to revoke deportation orders did not create an entitlement to remain. It refused the applicants’ requests for a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The order dismissed both proceedings and discharged the injunction restraining deportation. The judgment determined the applications before the court; it did not make a new deportation order.