The High Court refused four applicants leave to seek judicial review of the Minister for Justice’s decision to reaffirm a deportation order, and declined their application for an injunction restraining deportation. The court held that the evidence did not establish a basis for either form of relief.
The challenge concerned a decision dated 20 December 2005, reaffirmed by the Minister on 5 January 2006. The applicants’ solicitors had asked the Minister to consider fresh psychiatric evidence about the first named applicant and to revoke the deportation order on humanitarian grounds. The judgment records that the applicants did not raise refoulement.
A departmental memorandum referred to refoulement, but the court concluded that the evidence did not show it formed part of the Minister’s decision. The court relied on a handwritten recommendation by a senior departmental official directing the Minister to affirm the order for reasons in the memorandum’s paragraph about the first applicant’s psychiatric condition. The Minister’s handwritten note recorded that the order was reaffirmed.
The applicants argued that the Minister had considered only refoulement, ignored the discretion available under section 3 of the Immigration Act 1999 and failed to consider relevant psychiatric evidence when exercising that discretion. The court found no evidential basis to show the Minister had regard only to refoulement, or had regard to it at all. It said the psychiatric condition had been considered in several parts of the memorandum and that the highlighted paragraph was the basis of the decision.
The court also rejected a challenge to the memorandum’s statement that its author was not aware whether the applicant could be maintained on medication in Croatia. It read the sentence as expressing the author’s lack of knowledge, and held that this did not provide grounds for leave.
Citing the applicable leave threshold as arguability, the court said the weighing of matters that could be considered on humanitarian grounds was for the Minister. It found no evidence that the Minister ignored or unlawfully fettered the discretion, and no exceptional circumstances warranting intervention. Because leave was refused, the court said the higher threshold for an injunction was not met. It therefore declined each application.