The High Court refused an interim injunction to stop the deportation of a young woman while her application for leave to seek judicial review was pending. The court said no formal, substantiated application for an EU residence card had been made, so there was no arguable case at that stage that the deportation order was invalid.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Cooke on 10 November 2010, concerned a deportation order dated 21 September 2010. The applicants also sought to amend their grounds to address that order, which had replaced an earlier order. The Minister did not object, and the court allowed the amendments.
The first applicant argued that she was entitled to live in Ireland as a qualifying family member under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2006. She said she had arrived from Nigeria in 2006, aged 16 or 17, to join her mother and her mother’s then husband, a British national. The court noted that the mother’s residence had been based on her marriage to an EU citizen. The mother disputed the validity of a divorce obtained in Nigeria in 2008, but did not provide an affidavit in the proceedings.
The judgment recorded that the first applicant had not submitted the EU No. 1 form for a residence card, although one had been sent to her solicitors in August 2009. The court found that the required application and supporting documents had not been lodged, and that no judicial review challenge had been brought against a July 2009 refusal. It said the respondent had not received the proofs needed to assess the claimed entitlement.
The court did not decide whether the first applicant ultimately qualified for residence. The Minister’s counsel accepted that she might be able to establish such a right, and that a fully documented application could entitle her to remain while it was considered. The judge said that, if such an application were lodged, she could ask the Minister to revoke the existing deportation order on the basis of the new circumstances.
But on the material before it, the court held that the injunction application was premature and refused it. The ruling addressed interim relief pending the leave application; it did not determine a completed judicial review challenge to the deportation order.