The High Court struck out a judicial review brought by Zijun Wang after he withdrew his challenge to the refusal of leave to land and cancellation of his Irish visa. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ordered Wang to pay the Minister for Justice and Equality’s costs, including reserved costs, with the amount to be determined by taxation if the parties could not agree.
The judgment, delivered on 31 July 2018, records that the decisions challenged were made on 17 November 2017 and that Wang began the proceedings on 22 January 2018. By the time of the costs ruling, he was no longer pursuing the case. The judge held it was not moot: because Wang had abandoned the challenge, costs followed the event.
The court rejected Wang’s submissions that the Minister had acquiesced in the withdrawal, that the case had been withdrawn quickly, and that the Minister had generated additional costs by filing further affidavits after withdrawal was indicated.
The judgment says Wang notified the court on 9 April 2018 that he was withdrawing the proceedings without giving the State notice. The State’s solicitor objected to the matter being struck out without an order, then returned to court shortly afterwards, before any orders were perfected, seeking to have the case re-entered to address costs. The court adjourned the matter to 16 April. The judge described the State’s response as reasonable and legitimate and rejected the claim that it had acquiesced.
The judge said the speed of withdrawal might affect the amount of costs assessed, but not whether costs should be awarded. He also found that the further affidavits had been needed because Wang resisted the costs order after it was sought. In a separate ground for awarding costs, the judge said that, even if his other reasoning were wrong, he considered Wang’s conduct an egregious abuse of the immigration system, involving fraud on that system and significant non-disclosure to the court. The judgment also records that Wang did not submit a personal affidavit or reply to the respondent’s affidavits alleging fraud. These are the judge’s stated findings and the respondent’s allegations as described in the judgment.