The Supreme Court allowed the Minister for Justice’s appeal against a High Court ruling that had quashed the refusal of Chuka Paul Oguekwe’s application under the Irish Born Child 05 Scheme. It separately dismissed the Minister’s appeal against the High Court order quashing a deportation order made against him.
The judgment was delivered by Denham J. on 1 May 2008. The other judges named on the panel were Murray C.J., Fennelly J., Kearns J. and Finnegan J.
Oguekwe, a Nigerian national, entered Ireland on 3 February 2005. His son, Prince Roniel Oguekwe, was born in Ireland on 9 June 2003. The judgment records that the child’s mother, Blessing Oguekwe, had entered Ireland in April 2003, applied for asylum and later received permission to remain. The father applied under the scheme in February 2005.
The Minister refused that application because Oguekwe had not shown continuous residence in Ireland with his son, or an active role in the child’s upbringing, since the child’s birth. The Supreme Court held that continuous residence was an express scheme criterion and that the Minister acted within the scheme’s limits in refusing the application. The Court said the family’s constitutional and Convention rights remained to be considered separately.
The Court reached a different result on deportation. The Minister had signed an order on 9 November 2005, after a departmental examination of the case. The High Court quashed it, and the Supreme Court affirmed that decision. Denham J. concluded that the Minister had not expressly considered and given a reasoned decision on the Irish citizen child’s rights.
The judgment said the Minister must consider the child’s circumstances and constitutional and Convention rights, alongside the statutory factors and the common good. The extent of the consideration depends on the case. The Minister generally need not investigate matters beyond material submitted by or for the applicants and held on the departmental file, except in exceptional circumstances. A general consideration of conditions in the country to which a parent may be deported is required, but a detailed comparison of that country’s educational and development opportunities is not ordinarily required.
The Court said deportation may be ordered where there is a substantial reason connected with the common good, provided the decision is reasonable and proportionate. It did not decide that deportation would necessarily breach the family’s rights; it upheld the quashing of this order because the required consideration had not been carried out.