The Court of Appeal has quashed an exclusion order made against a Lithuanian citizen of the European Union, finding that the order did not make clear when its three-year period began or when he could lawfully return to Ireland.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Anthony Collins on 27 May 2025, concerned orders made by the Minister for Justice on 27 January 2023 under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015. The removal order required the man to leave the State within the period set out in a notice. The exclusion order said he could not re-enter or seek to re-enter “up to 3 years”. A notification said the three-year period ran from the date of his removal.
The man, identified in the judgment only as K, appealed after the High Court refused his judicial review challenge. He argued that the orders and accompanying notices did not specify the relevant time periods. The Minister submitted that the notification, read with the orders, supplied the necessary information.
The Court of Appeal treated the two challenges differently. It declined to consider the removal order’s validity because K had told his solicitor that he left Ireland sometime in November 2024 and was living and working in Manchester. The court said the legality of that order had lost its character as a real controversy, and K had provided no evidence about whether or how he complied with it. Although the High Court had certified legal questions as matters of exceptional public importance, the Court of Appeal declined to exercise its discretion to rule on the removal order after it became moot.
The exclusion order remained legally consequential. The court said its duration had to be ascertainable with precision so the person affected could know when re-entry would be lawful and when an application to review the order could be made. “Up to 3 years” could mean different things, the judgment said, and the notices did not resolve the uncertainty about when the period began. The order was therefore invalid for uncertainty.
The court allowed the appeal in part, set aside the High Court’s refusal to quash the exclusion order, and quashed that order by judicial review. It dismissed the balance of the judicial review application. The judgment proposed that K receive the costs of the High Court and appeal proceedings, subject to any written submissions from the Minister within 14 days and a reply within a further 14 days.