The High Court dismissed most of a Nigerian applicant’s judicial review challenge as out of time, but adjourned a limited part of the case pending a Court of Appeal judgment. The proceedings remain ongoing, and the court said it would hear further submissions on continuing a stay against deportation and on costs.
The applicant challenged a deportation order and an earlier refusal of permission to remain under the International Protection Act 2015. The refusal was dated 11 October 2017, the deportation order was notified on 19 October 2018, and the judicial review proceedings were filed on 5 November 2018. The Minister’s side did not contest the timing of the challenge to the deportation order itself.
Justice Richard Humphreys held that the challenge to the earlier permission-to-remain process was “massively out of time”. The applicant’s explanation was inadvertence by his legal advisers, who had assumed the earlier decision could be challenged when the deportation order was made. The judge said that did not justify starting a late challenge to a separate decision that had not been challenged within time. He noted that new information could be brought to the Minister through a review or an application to revoke the deportation order; the applicant had not sought a review under section 49(9).
The applicant had deleted grounds 1 to 4 from an amended statement of grounds. Ground 5 argued that the Minister erred by considering the applicant’s imprisonment and alleged torture in Libya when assessing his character. The judge held that this concerned the earlier section 49(4) decision and was also out of time. Ground 6 challenged the assessment of the applicant’s family and personal circumstances and the subsequent deportation order. The part concerning the earlier process was late; the limited part concerning the deportation order overlapped with a separate case awaiting a Court of Appeal decision.
The court dismissed reliefs D2 and D3, and relief D1 insofar as it concerned ground 5 or the section 49(3) and (4) process in ground 6. It adjourned the remaining part of relief D1 to the holding list pending the Court of Appeal judgment in S.T.E. v Minister for Justice and Equality. The court did not finally determine that remaining challenge.
An interlocutory stay against deportation had previously been granted on 19 November 2018. The judge said it appeared appropriate to continue the stay pending final determination, subject to hearing from counsel. He also set out interim costs directions: costs of the leave application and injunction hearing were reserved; costs from 20 November 2018 to 29 April 2019 were awarded to the respondents; and later costs were reserved. The costs were stayed pending final determination of the proceedings.