The High Court has refused a judicial review challenge to the Minister’s decision not to revoke a deportation order against an unsuccessful asylum seeker from Nigeria. The challenge argued that removing him would unlawfully interfere with the rights of an Irish citizen child who had been informally cared for by him and his wife.
The court was reviewing a refusal under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999 to revoke an existing deportation order. It was not considering the original decision to make that order. Mr Justice Cooke said the court’s role at this stage was limited: the Minister had to consider the reasons advanced for revocation and check whether any change in circumstances engaged a statutory prohibition on return.
The child, identified in the judgment as P, was the daughter of a friend of the first applicant. Her mother had suffered a stroke, and P had lived with the applicants from March 2008. The judgment describes the arrangement as informal, with a weekly guardian’s payment of €170 to the first applicant, but not a formal placement through the HSE. P’s mother remained involved in her care, and the Minister’s memorandum recorded that she spent every second weekend with her mother and that reunification was intended when her mother recovered.
The applicants argued that P’s constitutional rights as an Irish citizen and her right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had not been properly considered. The judge found that the Minister’s memorandum addressed P’s relationships with her mother and the applicants, including her connection with the other children in the household. He said the evidence submitted did not describe in detail the relationship between P and the second applicant or how she participated in the family’s everyday life.
The court accepted that Article 8 family life can extend beyond relationships based on blood or marriage, including in some circumstances a foster relationship. Whether such family life exists depends on the particular connection, its duration and intimacy, and any emotional or practical dependency. On the information submitted, the Minister was entitled to conclude that family life had not been established between P and the second applicant to the extent claimed.
The judge also noted that the applicants had no custody or guardianship of P and could return her to her mother or ask Kildare social services to take her into care. He concluded that the Minister had considered the representations fully and that the refusal to revoke the order was not irrational or unreasonable. The application was refused. The judgment did not itself make a new deportation order; it left the existing order in place.