The High Court has refused an applicant’s challenge to a deportation order, finding that the Minister for Justice had properly considered his time in Ireland and his employment prospects.
In a judgment delivered on 15 September 2021, Ms Justice Tara Burns said the applicant had not established an error in the Minister’s assessment under section 3(6) of the Immigration Act 1999. The court refused the relief sought and ordered the applicant to pay the respondent’s costs.
The applicant, identified in the judgment as ANA, is a Pakistani national. He applied for international protection on 23 January 2015. The Minister made a deportation order on 5 December 2019 and notified him of it by letter dated 28 January 2020. The High Court had granted leave to seek judicial review in May 2020 on grounds that included the alleged failure to consider his residence duration, humanitarian considerations and representations made on his behalf.
At the hearing, the applicant argued that the Minister had not properly considered how long he had lived in Ireland. The court rejected that ground. It said the applicant’s precise date of entry was unknown because he had provided no passport or immigration landing stamp. The Minister had, however, given him the benefit of the period he claimed—about four and a half years at the time of his September 2019 letter.
The applicant also argued that his employment prospects were not properly assessed. The court said the Minister had considered one job offer for full-time work as a chef, his volunteer work history, health representations and the refusal of his application for access to the labour market in April 2018. A second job offer was submitted only after the Minister had completed the deportation analysis, so the claim that it had been overlooked had no factual basis.
The court distinguished an earlier case in which the Minister had treated the absence of permission to remain or work as cancelling a positive assessment of employment prospects. Here, the lack of permission was recorded as part of the overall balancing exercise, rather than used to conclude that the applicant had no reasonable work prospects.
The judgment said the Minister had considered the matters required by section 3(6), and that the decision to deport was open to her. The court did not set aside the deportation order.