The High Court has refused five applicants leave to seek judicial review of a deportation order made against the fifth applicant, a Nigerian national and father of three children, including two Irish citizens.
Mr Justice Cooke ruled on 2 November 2010 that the applicants had not established a substantial ground for arguing that the Minister’s decision was unlawful and should be quashed. The application challenged a deportation order dated 9 March 2010. The court did not conduct a full judicial review of the order; it refused permission for one to proceed.
The judgment said the fifth applicant and his wife, the fourth applicant, had arrived in Ireland in 1999 and had been granted permission to remain because they were parents of Irish-born children. The wife’s permission was current until 9 March 2011. The couple also had three older children born in Nigeria; two were in Ireland with permission to remain.
The fifth applicant was convicted in the United Kingdom in 2004 of conspiracy to defraud and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with a recommendation for deportation. After the Irish authorities refused a request to allow him to return, he re-entered Ireland from Belfast in December 2005. A first deportation order was revoked by consent in 2007 after earlier judicial review proceedings were compromised. A second order followed in March 2010, after further submissions on his behalf.
The applicants argued that the Minister’s assessment was disproportionate. They challenged the weight given to the father’s poor employment prospects, the lack of consideration of alternatives to deportation such as prosecution for illegal entry, the order’s indefinite duration, and whether enough regard had been given to the children’s welfare.
The court said the departmental assessment had considered the family’s circumstances and the children’s interests, including the eldest child’s ADHD and education plan, the mother’s employment and the father’s role as a carer. It found the applicants’ objections concerned the weight given to factors, rather than an alleged material factual error or omission. The court held that the Minister, not the High Court, was responsible for balancing the competing interests, and that the assessment did not plainly fly in the face of reason or common sense.
The judge also noted that the Minister could amend or revoke a deportation order, and that the family could remain in Ireland with the mother or return to Nigeria together. The court refused leave to seek judicial review. The judgment did not itself order the father’s removal or determine whether the deportation order would later be executed.