The High Court has refused a Nigerian mother and her children’s judicial review challenge to deportation orders, finding that departmental officials could lawfully assess whether their removal would breach the prohibition on refoulement on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality.
Mr Justice McDermott delivered the judgment on 10 September 2013. The applicants had been granted leave to challenge the deportation orders on one ground: that the Minister had not personally considered whether removing them would breach the State’s non-refoulement obligations. The court’s decision concerned that challenge; it did not reopen the earlier refusals of their refugee status or subsidiary protection applications.
The family arrived in Ireland in July 2007. Their applications for refugee status were refused, as was a later subsidiary protection application. Their application for leave to remain on humanitarian grounds was also refused, and deportation orders were made on 27 September 2011. The family had already been deported after an application to restrain their removal was refused. The judgment does not give the date of their deportation.
The mother had claimed that militants in Nigeria threatened her family after her husband helped foreign oil workers escape. She said the militants later kidnapped her husband and eldest son, threatened and raped her, and sought ransom. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal rejected the family’s refugee claim on credibility grounds, citing fundamental inconsistencies in the mother’s account. Those matters were background to this judicial review, not findings made by Mr Justice McDermott.
In submissions supporting the family’s application for leave to remain, it was argued that return to Nigeria would expose them to death, ill-treatment or child trafficking, and that police protection was unavailable. Departmental officials reviewed those submissions and country information. An examination of the file concluded that Nigeria had a functioning police force and judicial system and that state protection was available. Officials recommended deportation; the orders were signed and sealed by Noel Waters on behalf of the Minister.
The court held that the Carltona principle applied to the statutory decision on non-refoulement. Under that principle, responsible officials may exercise a Minister’s powers on the Minister’s authority, subject to the Minister’s accountability. The judge found no statutory wording that excluded its application to this decision. He read the Supreme Court’s earlier comments in Meadows as requiring the decision-maker to assess the individual circumstances and relevant country information fairly, rather than requiring the Minister personally to decide the case.
Mr Justice McDermott concluded that the decisions in the family’s cases were lawful despite the Minister’s lack of personal involvement. He refused the applications for judicial review. The judgment makes no order quashing the deportation orders.