The High Court refused the Minister for Justice and Equality’s application for a certificate allowing an appeal to the Court of Appeal over a judicial review judgment concerning a deportation order directed at a minor applicant.
The application was made under section 5(3)(a) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The respondents argued that the earlier judgment raised a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal was desirable in the public interest.
In the earlier judgment, delivered on 3 March 2015, the court quashed a deportation order dated 5 August 2011. The judge said the Minister had not sufficiently considered the situation of a child born in Ireland, though not an Irish citizen, alongside the child’s mother. The court held that the fourth named applicant’s position should have been examined separately.
The respondents proposed asking whether the Minister could consider a child’s situation together with a parent’s in one memorandum or submission addressing the statutory factors for deportation. They said the earlier ruling could affect how the Minister considers deportation cases involving families. They also referred to another case in which a challenge concerning the treatment of children in a ministerial memorandum had been allowed to proceed, but judicial review was later refused; that case was listed before the Court of Appeal.
Justice Robert Eagar set out the criteria for granting a certificate, including that the legal uncertainty must be genuine, the point must arise from the decision, and exceptional public importance and public-interest desirability are separate requirements. He noted that two other minor applicants in this case had been considered separately by the Minister.
The judge concluded that the case did not raise a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal was not desirable in the public interest. He also said the court would not certify the case given the time and costs involved and the anticipated changes following the referendum on the Thirty First Amendment of the Constitution (Children Bill). The court therefore refused the certificate. This ruling addressed permission to appeal; it did not revisit the earlier judicial review judgment.