The High Court refused Deandra Gayle’s challenge to her deportation order and dismissed her Article 40 proceedings, finding she was in lawful custody.
In a judgment delivered on 27 October 2017, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys held that the deadline for leaving the State could be specified in a notice accompanying a deportation order. He also concluded that the arrest was valid because the date in the notice was incorporated by reference into the order.
Ms Gayle came to Ireland from Jamaica in May 2013 on a visitor’s visa and remained after it expired. A deportation order was made on 19 May 2017. A notice served on her on 24 May set 24 June 2017 as the date by which she had to leave. She was arrested in September after failing to leave by that deadline.
The court heard two applications: an Article 40 inquiry into the lawfulness of her detention, and judicial review challenging the deportation order and the regulations governing how its departure deadline could be set. The judge had ordered an inquiry in the Article 40 case and granted leave for judicial review, including amendments to the challenge.
Ms Gayle argued that the regulations were invalid because the Immigration Act required the period for leaving the State to be specified in the deportation order itself. The judge rejected that interpretation, finding that a clear reference to a date in a separate notice could satisfy the statutory requirement. He relied in part on a 2002 Supreme Court ruling that he considered determinative of the issue.
The judge also rejected the argument that the arrest was unlawful because the stated ground was failure to leave within the time specified in the order. Since the notice set the deadline by reference to the order, he found that this was a valid reason for arrest.
The judgment discussed whether the time for bringing the judicial review should be extended. The judge said that lawyers’ failure to identify the point did not meet the required criteria. However, because the challenge failed on its merits, he said it was not necessary to set aside the extension granted at the leave stage; his discussion of the time issue was therefore obiter.
The court refused the relief sought in the judicial review on the merits and dismissed the Article 40 proceedings, being satisfied that Ms Gayle was in lawful custody.