The High Court refused three Nigerian siblings’ application for leave to challenge their deportation orders, finding that their asylum claims had been refused as part of their father’s case. The court also refused to extend the time limit for bringing the challenge.
The siblings sought judicial review of deportation orders made on 5 September 2003. Their proceedings began on 16 March 2004, about four months after the 14-day limit had expired. The hearing took place at the King’s Inns on 24 June 2009. Ms Justice M. H. Clark delivered judgment on 9 October 2009.
The applicants argued that they had not applied for asylum and that the Minister could not deport them under the provision applying to people whose asylum applications had been refused. They said they had not been considered as individual applicants by the refugee authorities. Their representatives also argued that the children’s individual circumstances should have been assessed.
The respondents said the siblings had been included in their father’s asylum application. The court considered, among other material, a letter signed by the father and the second and third applicants in June 2001, asking that they be added to his application; appeal papers referring to the children; and correspondence in 2002 confirming that the Refugee Appeals Tribunal had considered them within the family’s case.
Justice Clark found that the father and the siblings knew the children were being included in his asylum application. The Tribunal’s decision referred to evidence from the second and third applicants and to the family’s children. The judge concluded that the Tribunal had treated the father’s appeal as including all seven children. She also found that the fourth applicant’s asylum claim had been subsumed into her father’s case after she was reunited with him.
The judge said the applicants could have challenged the Tribunal decision after receiving clarification in 2002 that the children had been included. Instead, they pursued the process for permission to remain temporarily. The court found that their conduct waived their later challenge to the asylum decision and concluded that their asylum claims had been refused.
The court was not satisfied that the applicants had shown substantial grounds for judicial review or a good and sufficient reason for the delay. Their explanation was limited to distress. The application for leave and the request to extend time were refused. The judgment did not quash the deportation orders.