The High Court has allowed a Romanian married couple to pursue a judicial review challenge to aspects of the Minister for Justice’s refusal to revoke a deportation order against Corina Eugenia Spartariu.
Mrs Spartariu arrived in Ireland through Rosslare in August 2001 and applied for asylum. She married Ioan Spartariu in November 2001. Her husband had by then been lawfully living and working in Ireland for about eight years.
A deportation order was made against Mrs Spartariu later that month under arrangements linked to the Dublin Convention, on the basis that Germany was responsible for dealing with her asylum application. She subsequently asked the Minister to revoke the order because of her marriage and sought permission to remain with her husband. That request was refused in November 2003.
Mr Justice Michael Peart held that the couple had reached the relatively low threshold required for leave to seek judicial review on their family-rights argument. He said it was arguable, having regard to European human-rights case law, that the Minister’s stated reliance on upholding immigration and asylum laws did not demonstrate the required balancing of the couple’s family interests against the State’s objectives.
The court also granted leave on a separate argument concerning legitimate expectation. Mrs Spartariu had been certified unfit to travel and said immigration officials had developed a practice of allowing her to report again after medical appointments. She was nevertheless arrested in April 2004 for intended deportation the following day. The judge held it was arguable that this change in approach, without warning, was unfair.
However, the court rejected claims that deportation would breach her rights to life or bodily integrity because the medical evidence was insufficient. It also refused the argument that the deportation order had become legally spent through the passage of time.
The ruling did not quash the deportation order. It merely allowed specified grounds of the challenge to proceed to a full judicial review hearing.