The High Court quashed deportation orders for two parents and their two minor children after finding an error in the Minister’s assessment of the parents’ employment prospects.
In a judgment delivered on 10 November 2017, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys ruled on the family’s judicial review challenge to the deportation orders. The parents had arrived in Ireland without permission, in 2003 and 2009, and had been running a Chinese restaurant since May 2015. Their children were born in 2011 and 2016.
The court had granted leave to bring the challenge on narrower grounds than originally sought. The issues included an alleged factual error in the decisions and an alleged defect in service on one child. The Minister did not pursue objections based on the timing of the challenge or the applicants’ unlawful presence, and the court extended time.
The judge found that the analyses of each parent’s file assessed their employment prospects in terms of taking paid employment. That reasoning did not address their circumstances as principals running their own business, he said. The Minister had referred to the establishment of the business but had also stated that the parents’ prospects were limited to employment that would displace an Irish or EU national.
The judge held that the analysis failed to deal with the facts of the case and contained an error in its reasoning. He said the issue was important in this case because the parents’ work prospects were central to the decisions, and the assessment of the parents’ situation affected the deportation decisions concerning the children. He upheld grounds E (i) and (ii) of the statement of grounds.
The court ordered certiorari to quash the deportation orders relating to all four applicants and awarded costs, including reserved costs, to be taxed if the parties could not agree. Because the court upheld the challenge on the employment-assessment issue, it made no decision on the alleged defect in service on one child.