The High Court has refused a mother and child’s application for judicial review of the Minister’s decision not to revoke their deportation orders.
Mr Justice Cooke delivered the judgment on 9 July 2009. The applicants sought to quash the decision communicated in December 2008 under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999. The court stressed that the case concerned only the refusal to revoke the orders. It was not reviewing the earlier refusals of subsidiary protection or the decisions to make the deportation orders.
The first applicant, whose name is anonymised in the judgment, arrived in Ireland from Nigeria in October 2006 and claimed asylum. She alleged that she had suffered abuse, rape and incest by her father and feared persecution if returned. Her child was born in Ireland in November 2006. Their asylum claims were rejected, and deportation orders were made in 2008. They did not challenge those decisions at the time.
The applicants later asked the Minister to revoke the orders. The judgment says the department’s 13-page memorandum considered their representations, including a report cited by the first applicant, information about conditions in Nigeria, possible protection through relocation, the child’s position as an Irish-born non-citizen, and the applicants’ private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also considered the first applicant’s report that she was pregnant and in Tallaght Hospital with complications.
The applicants argued that the Minister had not personally made the refusal, had not given adequate reasons, and had failed to investigate protection from incest in Nigeria. They also raised obligations under Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention, the child’s best interests, and the prohibition on refoulement. The judge rejected those grounds, finding that the refusal was made with the Minister’s authority and that the revocation process was not a means to reopen the unchallenged earlier decisions. He said the Minister had considered the representations and the relevant issues.
The court concluded that none of the grounds for review had been established and refused the application. The ruling did not revoke the deportation orders; they remained in place.