The High Court has set aside orders and findings in favour of two anonymised applicants in a judicial review concerning a proposed deportation, after DNA results showed that the first applicant, B.S. (India), was not the father of the infant applicant.
In a judgment delivered on 10 February 2021, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the applicants had repeatedly sworn that B.S. was the child’s father. The judge said they had offered no explanation for the contradiction after the DNA results became available. He concluded that their partial success in the case had been built on a fraudulent presentation and that their evidence compromised their credibility on other matters, including the second applicant’s movements and alleged exercise of EU treaty rights.
The case had been partly dismissed in May 2019. In August 2020, the court dismissed it except for one part of the relief sought and granted an injunction preventing B.S.’s deportation pending a DNA test and any applications arising from a positive result. The State was later granted leave to appeal. At the time of this judgment, the Court of Appeal had heard that appeal but had not decided it.
The High Court said the injunction had automatically ended following the negative DNA test and set aside all orders and findings in favour of the applicants. It formally found that B.S. was not the infant’s father. The judge also found that the child’s birth certificate was inaccurate and had been procured by fraud. The Minister had undertaken to ask the registrar to correct it by removing B.S.’s name as father and to provide relevant material from the proceedings. The judge suggested the Romanian authorities might also be notified because the certificate had been used to obtain a passport; this was a suggestion, not an order.
The respondents were awarded the full costs of the proceedings, including reserved costs, against the first and second applicants, on an indemnity solicitor-and-client basis. The court also reversed an earlier costs award to the applicants for a particular listing. B.S.’s bail was continued until final determination of the proceedings. The parties were asked to notify the Court of Appeal of the new order, which the judge said was not intended to alter the scope of the appeal.