The High Court refused an applicant leave to seek judicial review of the Minister for Justice’s refusal to let her make a further application for refugee status. Mr Justice de Valera said she had not established an arguable case.
The application concerned consent under section 17(7) of the Refugee Act 1996. The applicant sought to quash the refusal, which was notified to her solicitors by letter on 2 October 2006, and to have her application reconsidered. She also sought an injunction to prevent her deportation.
The applicant’s grounds included claims that her asylum application had been processed unfairly while she was a child and that she feared being subjected to female genital circumcision if returned to her country of origin. She argued that the Minister decided her consent application before she could provide further information, and that the material submitted should have led to further investigation of her risk and the handling of her earlier claim. These were the applicant’s allegations; the judgment did not determine the underlying refugee claim.
The court recorded that the applicant entered the State on 5 January 2001 and applied for asylum that day. The Refugee Appeals Commissioner refused her application in May 2002, and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal refused it in November 2002. Neither refusal had been challenged. A deportation order was issued on 22 February 2005 and remained in force. The applicant applied for the Minister’s consent on 15 September 2006 and began separate plenary proceedings the same day.
After hearing oral and written submissions from both sides, the judge said the application was not frivolous or vexatious, but the applicant still had to show an arguable case to obtain leave. He accepted that the Carltona principle applied to the Minister’s consideration and delegation of the decision-making process, and found nothing in the procedure or the way the decisions were reached that justified judicial review. Leave was refused.
The respondent had undertaken not to deport the applicant until the leave application concluded. The judge said that, following his decision, no injunction issue remained in these proceedings. He observed that the separate plenary proceedings might be moot, but noted it was unclear whether another section 17(7) application had been made. Any further injunction application would have to be brought separately in those plenary proceedings.