The High Court has refused four applicants leave to bring judicial review proceedings challenging deportation orders, finding that their proposed legal argument had already been addressed by the Supreme Court.
In a judgment delivered on 13 March 2017, Ms Justice O’Regan said the applicants sought leave to apply for certiorari to quash deportation orders and for injunctions preventing deportation while their cases proceeded. Three orders were dated 13 January 2017 and one was dated 12 December 2016.
The proposed grounds argued that the orders did not state the date by which the applicants had to leave the State, contrary to section 3(1) of the Immigration Act 1999. The applicants also contended that a date could not be supplied by a separate notice and that the orders contained an error on the face of the record.
Their submissions asked whether a deportation order was lawful if it did not itself specify a departure date. The judge said that question had been dealt with by the Supreme Court in P, L & B v Minister for Justice [2001] IESC 107. In that case, the Supreme Court had found no inadequacy in the deportation order and accompanying letter considered together.
The applicants relied on later High Court decisions, including Lin Qing v Governor of Cloverhill Prison [2016] IEHC 710 and Parvaiz v Garda Commissioner [2016] IEHC 772. Justice O’Regan noted that Lin Qing involved habeas corpus proceedings and that, as to judicial review, the court had extended time but had not granted leave. She also referred to that judgment’s observation that a challenge based on a departure date appearing in an attached notice could be difficult where no prejudice was shown.
Parvaiz also concerned habeas corpus. The judge said the application there succeeded on the basis of Garda evidence about which document had been considered in deciding to arrest the applicant. She rejected the contention that the later decisions allowed the High Court to depart from the Supreme Court ruling, and said the Supreme Court’s reasoning need not be revisited because it did not discuss every statutory subsection.
The court refused leave. It did not determine the underlying judicial review grounds or quash any deportation order.