The High Court has dismissed two applications challenging the detention of Algerian nationals M.B. and L.S. at Cloverhill Prison, finding both were lawfully detained.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered the judgment on 21 December 2018. The applications were brought under Article 40.4 of the Constitution and heard together because they raised the same question about the interpretation of regulations governing places where people arrested under deportation orders could be detained.
The court heard that M.B. had been arrested on 11 December 2018 after a deportation order was made in 2017. He had been granted permission to remain following a marriage to a Polish national, but that permission was revoked in 2017 on the stated grounds that the marriage was one of convenience and information in his application was false or misleading. The judgment said he had been evading since 4 December 2018.
L.S. was also arrested on 11 December 2018. His residence permission, granted after his marriage to a Slovakian national, was revoked after authorities treated the marriage as one of convenience. The judgment records that the Minister’s consideration said the woman admitted to Slovakian authorities that she entered the marriage for €1,000. The judge was informed that L.S. had been evading since February 2018.
The applicants argued that regulations made in 2005 did not effectively prescribe Cloverhill Prison as a place of detention under the amended Immigration Act 1999. They also argued that 2016 regulations, which changed a reference in the 2005 rules from section 5(1) to section 5(3), did not amount to a proper decision by the Minister to prescribe places.
The judge rejected those arguments. He held that references to legislation generally apply to the legislation as amended, and that the 2016 amendment corrected the relevant reference. He also found there was no requirement for the Minister to prescribe places through a new standalone instrument: the places could be prescribed by amending existing regulations.
The judgment addressed the statutory interpretation issue and the lawfulness of detention in these applications. It did not determine any separate challenge to the underlying deportation decisions. Both applications were dismissed.