The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by four Nigerian nationals challenging the authority of a senior departmental official to sign their deportation orders.
The appeal concerned whether the Minister for Justice and Equality had to make the deportation decisions personally under section 3(1) of the Immigration Act 1999. The appellants had unsuccessfully sought judicial review in the High Court. Hogan J. certified the question for appeal as one of exceptional public importance.
The deportation orders were signed on 29 July 2011 by Noel Waters, then Director General of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service, which formed part of the Minister’s department. The judgment records that the appellants had failed to obtain political asylum and were subject to deportation orders. It says no material was put before the Supreme Court to show that their cases raised specific exceptional humanitarian, national security or public policy considerations.
Writing for the court, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said the appellants had to establish that legislation expressly or clearly by implication required the Minister alone to decide. He said the Immigration Act contained no such restriction. The court applied the Carltona principle, under which departmental officials may exercise ministerial functions in the Minister’s name where the statute does not require personal action.
The judgment said earlier Supreme Court decisions in Tang v Minister for Justice and Devanney v Minister for Justice supported that approach. It rejected the appellants’ arguments that deportation’s gravity, references in the Act to humanitarian considerations and the common good, or the Refugee Act 1996 required a different result.
The court also noted that the appellants did not identify an error or deficiency in the decision-making procedure, or claim specific prejudice because Mr Waters signed the orders rather than the Minister.
The Supreme Court’s decision was limited to the argument that the Minister had to act personally. It was not asked to determine an identified procedural error in how the deportation decisions were made. The court was not persuaded that the Minister’s power had been restricted by the legislation and dismissed the appeal.