The High Court has refused leave for a Nigerian woman and her infant daughter to challenge a deportation order made against the mother, and directed an order for costs against the applicants.
The application concerned the Minister for Justice’s decision to deport the mother. The court stressed that no deportation order had been made against the child. At the time the Minister considered the mother’s request to remain in Ireland, and reviewed her file, no asylum application had been made for the infant.
The mother had applied for asylum in April 2005, saying her village in Nigeria’s Adamawa State had been attacked and that her parents and 26 other residents were killed. Her asylum claim and subsequent appeal were unsuccessful. The Minister signed the deportation order on 29 September 2005, after considering her family circumstances and the child’s birth in Ireland. The child was not an Irish citizen and was entitled to Nigerian citizenship, according to the judgment.
The applicants argued that the Minister had not properly assessed the child’s circumstances or best interests, and that deporting the mother breached family unity. They relied on Supreme Court decisions concerning children’s asylum claims and deportation.
The State argued that the Minister had considered the information available at the time, including the child’s birth, and that the legal arguments had already been addressed in earlier High Court cases.
Justice Clark distinguished the Supreme Court case of Nwole, where deportation orders had been made against children on the mistaken premise that their asylum claims had been refused. Here, the child was not subject to a deportation order, and the question before the court was the validity of the order against her mother. The judge said the child’s own asylum application was made only after the mother had been notified of the deportation order.
The court also rejected the argument that later decisions had overturned the approach taken in earlier cases. It concluded that the challenge was misconceived and refused leave to bring judicial review. The ruling did not decide the child’s pending application for leave to remain, and the judgment noted that no deportation order had been made against her.