The High Court refused an applicant’s request for leave to seek judicial review of five immigration decisions, ruling that the challenges were brought too late or not pursued promptly. The court did not consider the merits of the underlying decisions.
The anonymised applicant, J. A., began proceedings on 13 October 2008. The decisions he sought to challenge included a negative recommendation by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, refusals of refugee status and subsidiary protection, a deportation order, and a refusal to revoke that order under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999.
The respondents raised delay as a preliminary objection. Under section 5(2)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, proceedings had to be brought within 14 days for the decisions on the refugee recommendation, refugee status and deportation order. The court recorded that the proceedings were respectively 15 months, 13 months and two months late. The respondents argued that the applicant had offered no reasonable explanation.
In an affidavit, the applicant said he was unfamiliar with legal matters, had understood that an appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal was being made, and had only then obtained representation that enabled him to bring the proceedings. The court said the affidavit appeared to attribute the delay to his former legal representatives. It held that allegations about those representatives’ competence or efficiency could not be relied on without giving them notice and an opportunity to respond, including through an affidavit. As no such evidence was provided, the court treated the explanation as inadmissible and found no good or sufficient reason for the delay. It refused an extension of time for the three challenges subject to the 14-day limit.
The respondents also argued that the applicant had not acted promptly in challenging the subsidiary protection decision, notified on 25 June 2008, and the refusal to revoke the deportation order, notified on 24 September 2008. Although proceedings were issued within the six-month outer limit for certiorari, the court said the promptness of the later applications had to be considered in light of the earlier delays. In those exceptional circumstances, it refused to consider the applications for leave concerning those two decisions.
The judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Hedigan on 18 December 2008. It records refusals of leave on procedural grounds; it does not decide whether any of the challenged immigration decisions was substantively correct.