The High Court has refused a Nigerian man’s application for judicial review of a deportation order made by the Minister for Justice and Equality in April 2017.
In a judgment delivered on 30 May 2019, Mr Justice David Keane rejected the applicant’s challenges to the Minister’s decision. The court did not make a new deportation order; it refused the application to review and set aside the existing order.
The applicant, identified in the judgment only as Z.A., came to Ireland in 2001, aged seven. He had pleaded guilty to three sexual offence counts relating to incidents in March 2010 and received concurrent two-year prison sentences, suspended for three years. He was 16 at the time of those offences. The judgment used initials to avoid indirectly identifying the complainant, whose anonymity was protected by law.
The Minister first proposed deportation in 2015. An earlier deportation order was revoked after a judicial review challenge was compromised in November 2016, and the Minister reconsidered the proposal. A fresh order was made on 21 April 2017. The applicant argued that the decision was irrational and disproportionate, that relevant matters were ignored or irrelevant ones considered, that the Minister misunderstood his sentence, and that the process was unfair and discriminatory. He also challenged the absence of an independent appeal.
The judge found no flaw in the Minister’s balancing of the applicant’s private and family life against the public interest. The Minister had considered the applicant’s residence, family circumstances and submissions, among other statutory factors. The court also rejected the complaint that a file note’s awkward description of the suspended sentence misled the Minister: read as a whole, the record showed the Minister understood the sentence imposed.
The applicant objected to material in a Garda National Immigration Bureau report, saying it included untested allegations and that he had not been able to cross-examine the complainant. The judge noted that the file note said the Minister had considered only offences for which the applicant was convicted, and that other allegations did not form part of the recommendation. The court also found the evidence before it insufficient to establish a procedural fairness breach.
The judge said the applicant had shown different treatment from other non-national co-accused, but the available evidence did not establish invidious discrimination. The court also rejected the argument that the lack of an independent appeal left him without an effective remedy. The application for judicial review was refused.