The High Court refused an application by Williams Ugbo and Ann Buckley for a certificate to appeal to the Supreme Court over a deportation order made against Ugbo. The court held that the proposed point of law did not meet the statutory test for certification.
The application followed an earlier High Court decision, dated 5 March 2010, refusing the applicants leave to seek judicial review of the Minister for Justice’s decision to make the deportation order. The applicants asked the court to certify whether it could consider information that had not been before the Minister and, if not, whether judicial review was an effective remedy under the European Convention on Human Rights. Their proposed question also referred to the absence of an automatic stay on deportation while judicial review proceedings were underway.
The applicants argued that judicial review was limited to examining the legality of the Minister’s decision, could not consider new material or change the decision, and did not automatically suspend deportation. Their Article 8 arguments at the earlier leave hearing included additional facts in Buckley’s affidavit about difficulties she might face in Nigeria. The court said those facts had not been before the Minister when the deportation decision was made.
The judgment said the applicants had since applied under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999 to have the deportation order revoked, providing additional information and updated country-of-origin material. No decision on that application had been made by the time of the certificate hearing. The court noted that a negative decision could be challenged in fresh judicial review proceedings.
In refusing certification, the court said the applicants had not established uncertainty in the law about whether Irish judicial review could provide an effective remedy for an alleged Article 8 violation. Relying on the Supreme Court’s judgment in *Meadows*, it said the O’Keeffe and Keegan standards allow careful review of decisions affecting fundamental rights, including consideration of proportionality and the decision’s effects.
The court distinguished the European cases relied on by the applicants, including cases involving alleged Article 3 risks and remedies that did not examine removal claims or provide accessible review. It also said the effective-remedy argument had not been determined at the original leave stage, and that certifying it then could allow the applicants to raise a new case on appeal without a first-instance decision.
The court refused the certificate under section 5(3) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The ruling addressed only whether the proposed question should be certified for appeal; it did not decide the pending revocation application.