The High Court rejected most grounds in a challenge to a seven-year exclusion order against a Polish EU citizen, but did not decide whether the Minister gave adequate reasons for choosing that period. Mr Justice Keane said he would hear further submissions on that issue, including on a recent Court of Appeal judgment.
The judicial review concerned a Ministerial decision made on 14 March 2017 and notified on 16 March. The applicants were the man, his wife and their daughter, who was a minor. They sought to quash the decision and declarations concerning their rights, the threat assessment and the review arrangements under EU law.
The man had pleaded guilty in 2012 to six sexual assaults against six women, committed between 2007 and 2011, with one further offence taken into account. He received a three-year sentence, with the final 16 months suspended subject to conditions. The Minister had first made a removal order in 2013. After earlier judicial review proceedings and further reviews, the exclusion period was reduced from 10 years to seven.
The applicants argued that the Minister had irrationally treated a January 2017 psychological assessment as consistent with a continuing threat. That assessment placed the man in the low range for dynamic risk factors. The court said it was only one part of the material considered. Earlier reports had assessed his combined risk as moderate-low, and the Minister had also considered the circumstances of the offending and other material.
Justice Keane held that expert opinion did not bind the decision-maker. He found shortcomings in the latest assessment, including that it did not combine the dynamic-risk result with the earlier assessment of static risk factors. He also said the therapist’s treatment relationship with the man affected the weight of the opinion. The applicants had not shown that the Minister’s conclusion was irrational or unreasonable.
The court also rejected the applicants’ arguments that the decision failed to meet EU requirements on a present and serious threat, relied on an outdated assessment, applied the wrong proportionality test, or breached fair procedures. It found that the applicants had opportunities to make submissions before the Minister’s decision. Their challenge to the availability of review and redress was also rejected, in light of a Court of Appeal decision in *Balc*.
However, the court reserved the remaining issue: whether the Minister adequately explained the seven-year exclusion period. The applicants also argued that the reduced period could, in practice, expire later than the original 10-year period would have expired if implemented without challenge. Justice Keane directed that the parties be heard further on the issue. The judgment therefore records no final ruling on that question.