The High Court has refused a request by Qingzhou Li and Huimin Wang for a declaration clarifying the reasons for the refusal of their applications for permission to be in the State. It also ordered that their application for leave be dismissed in respect of all reliefs sought, and made no order as to costs.
The ruling followed an earlier decision refusing certiorari. Justice Richard Humphreys had invited further submissions on consequential matters, including whether a declaration should be made. The applicants said a declaration would clarify whether the refusals rested on procedural rather than substantive grounds and could assist with a future application to the Minister for Justice and Equality.
The Minister did not seek a declaration, arguing that the issues were already sufficiently clear from the earlier judgment. The judge agreed. He said the essential ground for refusing permission was the applicants’ failure to apply from outside the State. However, he had also held that the Minister was required to, and did, take all circumstances into account, but those considerations did not outweigh that essential ground. In his view, a further declaration would add no significant benefit.
The court then considered costs. The Minister sought costs on the basis that they should follow the event. The applicants opposed that request and argued that the proceedings had clarified the law. They also said the State should have provided more information about the potentially relevant Hussein case before or at the hearing. The judge rejected that argument, accepting the Minister’s counsel’s submission that she had not known how much the Hussein case might overlap and that some statutory interpretation issues only emerged at the hearing.
The judge weighed the usual starting point that costs follow the event against factors favouring a different order. These included that the applicants had achieved some clarification of legal issues, that not all of the State’s submissions had been upheld, the complexity of the legislation, and the possibility that other cases could benefit from points decided in the proceedings. He concluded that the appropriate order was no order as to costs.
The final order refused the application for a declaration, dismissed the application for leave in respect of all reliefs sought, and made no order as to costs.