The High Court refused the applicants leave to seek judicial review of the Minister for Justice’s decision not to revoke a deportation order against E.J., a Nigerian national and grandmother of three children. It also discharged the interim injunction restraining her deportation.
Mr Justice John Hedigan delivered the judgment on 22 October 2008. The application challenged the Minister’s decision following a review under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999. The court was considering whether the applicants had made out a prima facie case with an arguable ground for relief; it was not deciding a full judicial review.
E.J.’s asylum application had been unsuccessful, and a deportation order was signed in May 2006. After a separate application on behalf of the Irish-born children and related proceedings, E.J. applied for revocation in 2008. A departmental officer considered the family’s circumstances and rights under Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the children’s education and information about possible female genital mutilation in Nigeria. The officer concluded deportation was proportionate. A senior officer endorsed that assessment, and the decision was notified on 20 August 2008.
The applicants argued that the Minister had failed expressly to consider the children’s constitutional rights and had applied the wrong proportionality test. The Minister’s position was that relevant matters had been considered and that the approach in earlier High Court authority applied to a proposed deportation involving a grandmother.
Justice Hedigan held that review of a refusal to revoke a deportation order at this late stage was very narrow. He found that the children’s constitutional right to reside in Ireland was not at risk: their mother had said she would not return to Nigeria if E.J. were deported. The court also concluded that the Minister’s decision carefully analysed the children’s rights and balanced them against the State’s interest in immigration control. It held that reference to the “insurmountable obstacle” approach in the cited UK decision was not inappropriate for the Article 8 assessment in this case.
The judge acknowledged E.J.’s importance to the family but said the papers disclosed no credible basis for her asylum claim and that she had come to Ireland to care for her grandchildren. Finding that substantial grounds had not been established, the court refused leave and discharged the interim injunction. The judgment does not itself state that the deportation was carried out.