The High Court has quashed deportation orders concerning a mother and her minor son after finding that the Minister for Justice failed to address a relevant discretion and did not expressly consider delay in the deportation process.
In a judgment delivered on 29 January 2019, Mr Justice Max Barrett said the Minister’s reasoning did not mention the discretion recognised by the Supreme Court in DE v Minister for Justice, even though submissions on it had been made. The court said it was not enough that facts relevant to that discretion appeared elsewhere in the Minister’s analysis, because the same facts could support different conclusions when viewed through that discretion.
The applicants are non-EU nationals. The judgment says the mother and father are married, and their son was born in Ireland in 2007 and had always lived here. The father had sought international protection and, at the time of the judgment, had permission to remain. The mother and son faced deportation. The son has medical conditions requiring ongoing care and a stable environment, as well as phonological, developmental and language difficulties. Three of his teachers had told the Minister that removing him from his school and life in Ireland would be “catastrophic” for him.
The court also identified a failure to expressly address state delay, which it said was relevant to the proportionality of deportation. It considered the delay in bringing the case relatively brief, noting the family had been liaising with the Minister while expecting the deportation orders to be withdrawn. The court said there was good and sufficient reason for the delay and that refusal to revoke could not reasonably have been anticipated.
Several other grounds were rejected. The judge found that the Minister had considered the son’s disability beyond medical care, considered the material on file, duly assessed the child’s best interests, and provided a legally adequate cumulative assessment of Article 8 rights. The court also found no evidence that the Minister had failed to consider relevant country information or had made the alleged mistake about material submitted.
The Minister argued that discretionary relief should be refused, citing the parents’ illegal entry and work in Ireland. The court weighed those matters against the failings it identified, the risk of separating a constitutionally protected family, and the son’s disability. It granted the certiorari orders sought. It declined a proposed amendment to the statement of grounds because the applicants’ arguments were already within its scope.