The High Court refused a mother and her four children leave to challenge deportation orders made in 2006, finding they had not established substantial grounds for arguing that the Minister’s decision should be quashed.
In a judgment delivered on 18 March 2010, Ms Justice M. H. Clark considered three proposed grounds: that the Minister had failed to assess the family’s rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights; had overlooked the individual circumstances of the three children born in Nigeria; and had selectively used country of origin information about Nigeria.
The family, Nigerian nationals of Yoruba ethnicity, arrived in Ireland in March 2005. The mother’s asylum claim said she and her husband had converted from Islam to Christianity, after which he refused the title of village chief, was beaten and the family was threatened. The Refugee Appeals Tribunal upheld the recommendation that they not be granted refugee status. The Minister later decided to deport the mother and children.
The judge rejected the Article 8 ground. At the time the Minister considered the family’s application to remain, they had been in Ireland for about 15 months and, as far as he knew, were together while the father’s whereabouts were unknown. The judge said the applicants had identified no facts showing that deportation would interfere with their private or family life. The court also said the Minister was not required to seek out hypothetical breaches of rights that had not been raised by the information before him.
The court also rejected the claim that the Nigerian-born children’s circumstances had been ignored. The judgment said their biographical details and schooling had been noted. The youngest child, Solomon, was born in Ireland but was not an Irish citizen. The judge said the attention given to his status did not diminish consideration of his siblings, and that no special personal or humanitarian circumstances requiring further comment had been brought to the Minister’s attention.
On country information, the judge said no such material had been supplied with the application to remain, and the family had not suggested they would face danger if returned to Nigeria. The Minister had made his own inquiries. The applicants had not identified contrary information before either the Minister or the court, so the criticism of the Minister’s use of the material was described as tenuous.
The court refused leave to bring the judicial review challenge; it did not proceed to a full judicial review of the deportation decision. The judge noted that later developments—including the father’s arrival in Ireland, the passage of time and the children’s educational circumstances—were not before the Minister when he made the orders and were not taken into account in deciding this application.