The High Court has dismissed an application by three applicants, including a minor represented by his mother, for leave to appeal a judgment that refused to quash deportation orders against them.
In a judgment delivered on 5 June 2018, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the proposed appeal question concerned how failure to present for deportation should be defined and assessed when considering an application to revoke a deportation order. It also asked whether authorities had to prosecute relevant offences under the Immigration Act 1999 to establish a lack of cooperation.
The judge ruled that the question was not one of exceptional public importance. He also found clearly untenable the applicants’ submission that, without a conviction for an evasion-related offence, the Minister could not take evasion into account when making a deportation order. He said a decision-maker may consider a breach of law independently of whether a prosecution is brought or, depending on the circumstances, its outcome.
The court had already refused certiorari in an earlier judgment, dated 25 April 2018. Justice Humphreys said that decision rested both on the merits and on discretion, and that this also meant it was not in the public interest to allow an appeal.
In considering discretion, the judge said the applicants had gone on the run after the deportation orders, leaving their accommodation without a forwarding address, and were located some years later. He described them as having obstructed enforcement of the Immigration Act. He also said the proceedings’ Statement of Grounds described them as stateless, which he found untrue. These were the judge’s stated reasons in deciding the leave application.
The order was limited to dismissing leave to appeal. The judgment did not make a new deportation order.