The High Court has made no order on costs after an inquiry into the detention of an Afghan woman became moot when she was released before it began. The court did not decide whether her detention was lawful.
The case concerned an Article 40 inquiry directed by the High Court on 13 December 2017. The applicant had been arrested after she and two daughters were refused permission to land at Dublin Airport. She was detained at the Dóchas Centre in Mountjoy Prison pending arrangements for her removal from the State.
The State’s position was that the applicant and her younger daughter had earlier been accommodated, but not detained, at Balseskin Reception and Accommodation Centre. The applicant disputed that account. The judgment records that this factual dispute remained unresolved.
The applicant sought the costs of the inquiry from the State. The State argued that it should receive its costs, but submitted that the court should make no order. The court found there was no “event” on which the ordinary rule that costs follow the event could operate: the inquiry had ended without a decision on the lawfulness of detention, and the State had not acknowledged that the detention was unlawful.
The judge found that the applicant’s release followed information and documents sent to the immigration authorities on the morning the inquiry was due to begin. That material included evidence about her husband’s employment. The authorities agreed to review the revocation of the family’s residence permissions and to release the applicant and her elder daughter, on condition that review applications were made within seven days. The judge said the change in circumstances came from information provided late by the family, rather than a unilateral change of position by the Minister.
The judgment also recounts that the family had moved address in Limerick without notifying the authorities and had left Ireland for more than a month. The judge noted that the applicant’s husband had stopped working in June 2017, later returned to work, and had suffered leg fractures. The judge did not determine the merits of the detention challenge, including an argument that the revocation of residence permission had not yet taken effect when the family returned to Ireland.
The judge was not satisfied that it had been reasonable to seek the inquiry before providing evidence relevant to the family’s continuing residence rights. However, the court’s operative decision was limited to costs: it made no order concerning them.