The High Court refused the applicants’ application for leave to seek judicial review of deportation decisions concerning H.O. and her son, E.O. The court found that they had advanced no substantial grounds for leave, so the case did not proceed to a full judicial review hearing.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice McCarthy on 28 November 2008, concerned deportation orders dated 5 March 2008. H.O.’s daughter, C.A.O., was also named as an applicant. The judge’s opening description says the orders were made against the first and second applicants.
H.O. and E.O. had arrived in Ireland in May 2005 and sought asylum. Their claim included H.O.’s account that she had fled Nigeria because her husband’s family wanted to make a human sacrifice of E.O. and her unborn child. She said she and the children would face persecution if returned. These were her claims, not findings by the court.
The Minister refused asylum and subsidiary protection and later considered whether removal would be prohibited by section 5 of the Refugee Act 1996. The Minister’s decision stated that he had considered the relevant material, including country-of-origin reports, and was satisfied that removal would not breach the prohibition on refoulement. That material included reports presenting differing accounts of ritual killings and the Nigerian authorities’ response.
For the applicants, counsel argued that the Minister had relied mechanically on extracts from reports without properly engaging with them. Counsel also argued that the Minister should have explained why some information was accepted and other material rejected, and set out the reasoning behind the refoulement decision.
The judge rejected those arguments at the leave stage. He said there was no evidence contradicting the Minister’s statement that the relevant material had been considered. Applying earlier decisions, including the Supreme Court’s ruling in *Baby O.*, he held that the Minister was required to consider the representations and notify the applicants of the decision, but was not required to provide detailed reasons explaining why refoulement did not arise. He also found no unusual, special or changed circumstances that would justify going behind the Minister’s reasoning.
The applicants relied on a more recent High Court decision concerning the nature of rights under section 5. Justice McCarthy concluded that it did not displace the binding approach in *Baby O.* He also applied the *O’Keeffe* test to judicial review. The court refused leave; it did not conduct a full review of the deportation decisions or make a new finding on the underlying risk claims.