The High Court refused an application for leave to seek judicial review of deportation orders made against a Nigerian mother and two of her children, finding that the applicants had not shown substantial grounds for the challenge.
Mr Justice Hedigan’s judgment, delivered on 18 December 2008, also refused to extend the deadline for challenging a separate Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision concerning one child’s refugee status. The application was brought about six months and one week after the 14-day statutory time limit. The mother said she had wanted to challenge the decision but had not obtained advice until after the deportation orders were notified. The judge found that explanation insufficient and said the delay required reasonable, clear and credible reasons of some weight. The challenge to the tribunal decision therefore did not proceed.
The remaining application concerned the Minister for Justice’s decision to make deportation orders against the mother and two children. The applicants argued that the Minister had not properly assessed their family life rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and had made a mistake in identifying a child in the decision analysis.
The judge concluded that departmental officials had thoroughly considered the family and domestic circumstances, including information about the mother’s husband and a child born in Ireland. He noted that the submissions seeking permission to remain had included little information about the husband and no reference to the applicants’ Article 8 rights. The court considered that the husband could not be viewed, on the information before the Minister, as part of the functioning family unit. It held that deportation of the mother and the two children would not interfere with that family life, so a proportionality assessment under Article 8(2) was not required.
The court also treated the incorrect name in the department’s analysis as a typographical error that did not make the decision unreasonable or irrational. The fourth child was not covered by the refugee decisions or the deportation orders at issue and remained in the asylum process, according to the judgment.
The judge refused leave, concluding that substantial grounds had not been shown. The ruling addressed whether the applicants met the threshold to bring judicial review; it did not quash the deportation orders.