The High Court dismissed a South African man’s judicial review challenge to a deportation order, finding no basis to quash the Minister’s decision. It also released the Minister from an undertaking not to deport him, effective from the oral pronouncement of judgment, and adjourned the matter for any application for leave to appeal.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered the judgment on 29 July 2016. The case concerned a deportation order made on 5 August 2015. The applicant had come to Ireland in 1999 and was granted leave to remain in 2001 as the father of an Irish-born citizen child. He was convicted in March 2010, following a jury trial, of an offence relating to cannabis for sale or supply and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. The judgment does not name the children or identify the precise offence of conviction.
The applicant argued that the Minister’s assessment of the impact of deportation on his family was defective. The judge said the Minister had considered the seriousness of the offence, the applicant’s failure to acknowledge responsibility, possible employment difficulties, potential future criminality and the breach of a condition of his permission to remain. The court held that the assessment was not manifestly irrational or otherwise unlawful. It also rejected the argument that children must, as a general rule, be shielded from the consequences of a parent’s conduct.
The judge noted that the applicant’s wife and children were not parties to the judicial review. He also recorded that, after further evidence was allowed, it emerged that the spouses were living at separate addresses, contrary to the position initially presented on the applicant’s behalf. The judgment said the material submitted to the Minister did not clearly explain why the family could not move to South Africa together.
The court accepted that there was “some” tension between the Department’s approval of enhanced remission, based on rehabilitation and reduced risk of reoffending, and its decision to deport on grounds that included possible future criminality. But the judge concluded that this tension did not make the deportation decision unlawful: he said it was based on a range of factors and did not appear to rest on a finding of high reoffending risk.
The court also rejected the claim that considering the applicant’s continued denial of guilt amounted to a second punishment. It held that denial of responsibility could lawfully be considered in relation to rehabilitation and future risk. The judgment did not determine the applicant’s separate miscarriage-of-justice application; it noted that he had not appealed his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal.