The High Court dismissed judicial review proceedings seeking to prevent the deportation of a Nigerian national while his third application to revoke a deportation order remained pending. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered judgment on 17 October 2017.
The only substantive relief pursued was an injunction restraining the deportation. The applicants had also sought an order compelling the Minister for Justice and Equality to determine the revocation application, but that request was no longer pursued because the Minister said it would be determined in due course.
The deportation order was made on 27 February 2006. The judgment records that the first named applicant was due to present to the authorities in March 2006 but evaded for nine years before presenting in March 2015. He later made two applications under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999 to revoke the order; both were refused. A third application was made on 12 October 2017, after he had been arrested and detained at Cloverhill Prison.
The court held that a section 3(11) application does not, by itself, prevent deportation, and that the Minister was not required to decide such an application before deportation. The Minister must still be satisfied that deportation is lawful in the particular case. The judge accepted evidence that, before an arrest, the Garda Síochána Evader Tracking Unit checks with the Department and receives confirmation that there is no legal obstacle from the Minister’s perspective. He found no basis to conclude that this confirmation was unlawful in this case.
The judgment rejected the argument that a policy connected to the McMahon Report entitled the applicant to relief. It also found that the duty to consider the revocation application did not justify an injunction, and that the balance-of-convenience argument did not apply to the substantive injunction sought.
In weighing the circumstances, the judge accepted evidence that the applicant had evaded the deportation order and provided materially false or misleading information. The judgment also referred to delays in providing children’s birth certificates and limited evidence of intensive involvement in the family’s lives. It said there appeared to be no obstacles to the family returning together to Nigeria, and noted that the applicant could be brought back if the Minister later allowed his application.
The court dismissed the proceedings. It did not determine the third revocation application or make a deportation order; the injunction sought was refused.