The High Court refused an application for an interlocutory order in a judicial review case concerning the transfer of a Liberian asylum applicant to the United Kingdom. Mr Justice Hedigan ruled on 13 December 2007 that the balance of convenience lay against the applicants.
The applicants were a minor Irish citizen, his father and his mother. The father had previously sought asylum in Germany and the UK before applying in Ireland in December 2006. His Irish application was transferred to the UK, and a transfer order had been made against him. The judgment says he had no entitlement to remain in Ireland and had admitted entering the State unlawfully on several occasions before December 2006.
The mother was entitled to reside in Ireland under the IBC/05 scheme. The judgment records that she had previously admitted being seriously untruthful in attempts to mislead immigration authorities.
The applicants’ principal argument was that transferring the father would seriously disrupt family life and prejudice their constitutional or Convention rights. The judge accepted that disruption would occur, but considered that the child’s father had been absent for nearly all of the child’s life, which was then four years. He concluded that the disruption was not of a kind the family could not manage.
The judge also rejected arguments based on the possibility that the father might later be deported from the UK to a third country. He said there was no evidence that such a further deportation would happen and that he would not infer it. He considered that the father could continue to access the Irish courts from the UK.
On candour, the judgment says the parties agreed that the father’s lack of candour did not reach the level of the “barefaced lies” discussed in an earlier Supreme Court case. The judge nevertheless noted the mother’s previous attempts to mislead authorities, but said he put that matter to one side in reaching his decision.
Balancing the family’s arguments against the State’s duty to implement international asylum and immigration arrangements, the judge refused the requested interlocutory order. The judgment does not state a final determination of the judicial review proceedings.