The High Court has refused a Georgian man’s judicial review challenge to a deportation order, finding that the Minister for Justice acted lawfully in notifying him of an order made before he submitted further information about alleged threats to his family.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan on 22 January 2025, concerned the timing of a refoulement assessment under section 50 of the International Protection Act 2015. The applicant argued that the Minister should have considered new information submitted after the deportation order was made but before he was notified of it. He also relied on legitimate expectation, based on official emails acknowledging receipt of his solicitors’ correspondence.
The applicant had claimed that the family of a man killed in a 2020 car crash blamed him for the death and that he feared harm if returned to Georgia. His international protection application and appeal were unsuccessful. In December 2022, his wife and son applied for protection in Ireland. In August 2023, after a deportation order had been signed on 26 July, his solicitors sent the Minister material about alleged threats to his wife and an attempted kidnapping of their child in Georgia. The order and the section 50 report were served on him on 8 August.
Justice Phelan found that the applicant had not provided the information “forthwith”, as section 50(3) required. The information about his family’s circumstances had been known to him for months before the order was made. The court held that the late material did not make the original decision unlawful or require the Minister to revoke the order before notifying him.
The judge also rejected the legitimate-expectation argument. Emails saying that the submissions had been received and forwarded to a relevant unit did not promise that the material would be considered before the order was served, or that the order would be revoked.
The judgment set out an important limit: the Minister remains obliged to consider relevant information about changed circumstances before carrying out a deportation order, where it is submitted in accordance with section 50(3). The existence of an order does not permit removal in breach of the prohibition on refoulement. The court said an application to revoke the order under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999, alongside a request for an undertaking or injunctive relief where appropriate, could be pursued. It did not decide whether the Minister could lawfully refuse to consider the new material because it was late; no such refusal had occurred.
The court refused the relief sought. It directed that consequential matters be listed unless the parties agreed the final order and notified the Registrar within two weeks of judgment.