The High Court refused a Nigerian mother and her four minor children leave to seek judicial review of deportation orders and a refusal of subsidiary protection, finding they had not established substantial grounds. The court said the family’s request for an injunction to prevent deportation pending the case therefore did not arise.
The family had arrived in Ireland in July 2005. Their asylum application was rejected by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. A later High Court challenge to the tribunal’s decision was refused leave in March 2007.
The Minister for Justice made deportation orders for the five applicants on 26 February 2008. They sought leave to challenge those orders and the subsidiary protection refusal, arguing that the Minister had not properly considered the children’s interests and the social and economic difficulties they could face in Nigeria. They also argued that the children’s protection claims had effectively been subsumed into their mother’s claim.
The court accepted that the deportation challenge was filed outside the 14-day period, but found good and sufficient reason to extend time. On the substance of the challenge, Mr Justice Hedigan said the Minister’s analysis had considered the children’s rights and the difficulties raised in the family’s representations. He found it untenable to say that their interests had not been considered.
The judge also rejected the challenge to the subsidiary protection decision. He noted that the application appeared to rely on the same facts as the family’s earlier asylum claim, which had already been rejected. He said that circumstance necessarily limited the court’s role in reviewing the Minister’s decision.
The family had separately argued that deportation could breach their family-life rights if the mother and children were separated. At the time, the mother was detained in Mountjoy women’s prison and her sons were in temporary foster care. The judge found no evidence that the State intended permanently to separate the family and described that concern as speculative. He noted that deportation orders had been made for all five applicants.
The court did not decide whether deportation itself would proceed or grant an injunction. It refused leave to bring the judicial review, so the requested injunctive relief did not arise.