The High Court has refused Mohammad Khayrul Alam and Raluca Letitia Mihai’s application to overturn decisions revoking Mr Alam’s residence permission and ordering his deportation. The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Niamh Hyland on 6 July 2022, left the residence decisions undisturbed and refused relief against the deportation order. The court reserved costs submissions for a later hearing.
The challenge concerned the Minister for Justice and Equality’s decision of 9 October 2018 to revoke Mr Alam’s residence card, a review decision upholding that revocation on 6 March 2019, and a deportation order signed on 26 August 2019. The applicants began judicial review proceedings on 30 October 2019.
The judge found that the challenge to the residence decisions was out of time and refused an extension. She said the applicants had not provided sufficient evidence explaining the delay or shown a good and sufficient reason for extending the deadline. The revocation and deportation processes were separate decisions, she held, so the later deportation order did not restart the time limit for challenging the March 2019 review decision.
The judgment also addressed the applicants’ substantive objections to the residence decisions. The Minister’s concerns had included a false or conflicting PPS number on application forms and payslips, Ms Mihai’s employment history, and the timing of the marriage. The applicants disputed the significance of those matters and said the marriage was genuine. The court concluded that the conflicting PPS numbers and employment history could provide reasonable grounds for investigation and consideration. It declined to reassess the weight given to those factors, stating that judicial review examines the lawfulness of decision-making rather than the merits of the decision.
The judge rejected the argument that the Minister was required to seek representations from Ms Mihai. She also found that Mr Alam’s September 2018 representations were considered in the review, although his solicitor had not sent them in time for the October decision.
As to deportation, the court held that the Minister could carry findings from the residence decisions into the deportation consideration. Mr Alam had not made representations in response to the deportation proposal, and the applicants identified no concrete objection to the statutory findings in the examination of his file. The judge therefore rejected their challenge to the deportation order. She refused all relief sought and proposed 13 July for submissions on costs.