The High Court has granted G.O. leave to challenge the Minister for Justice’s refusal to revoke her deportation order, on a limited ground concerning the family rights of her daughters and grandchildren under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The decision, delivered by Ms Justice Clark on 19 February 2008, came at the leave stage of a judicial review. The court did not decide whether the refusal to revoke the order breached those rights. It continued an interlocutory injunction preventing G.O.’s deportation pending the hearing of the substantive action.
G.O., a Nigerian national, and her son had been refused asylum. The judgment says their claim that they faced persecution after converting from Islam to Christianity was found not credible, and a document relied on was considered forged. Deportation orders were made in February 2006. The applicants did not challenge those orders; they later asked the Minister to revoke them under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999.
In that request, G.O. said she was closely involved in caring for three infant grandchildren, including as their primary caregiver. The judgment records that the family’s submissions also described her business plans and her son’s education and ambitions. The Minister refused to revoke the orders. At the start of the court proceedings, the judge was told that the son had married an EU national in 2006, so the case proceeded only in relation to G.O.’s order.
The applicants argued that the Minister had failed to give proper consideration to the family’s Article 8 rights. The Minister’s counsel submitted that family matters had already been considered in the earlier leave-to-remain process and that the court should be slow to interfere after an extended process whose decisions had not been challenged. Justice Clark said the State’s response had some merit.
The judge nevertheless found an arguable case on one ground: that the Minister may have been required to show that competing family and public interests had been assessed before refusing revocation. She said the case’s unusual circumstances included that other members of G.O.’s travelling family group had received permission to reside based on their relationship to Irish-born children, while G.O. alone faced deportation from the original asylum-seeking group.
Leave was refused on the other grounds, including constitutional family rights, unfair procedures and the Torture Convention. The court’s ruling permits the Article 8 issue to be argued; it makes no finding on the merits of that claim or on whether the Minister’s decision was unlawful.