The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge by two Botswana nationals to deportation orders made against them, finding no substance in their grounds and saying the court would refuse relief on a discretionary basis because deception underlay their entry to Ireland.
The judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Richard Humphreys on 20 May 2020. The applicants, the second of whom was a minor, arrived at Dublin Airport on 14 November 2018 with a sponsorship letter stating they would stay with an Irish citizen. The court found they were instead to be collected by the first applicant’s mother, who had written the letter and sent it to the sponsor for signature. Their time-limited permission expired on 2 January 2019.
The Minister for Justice and Equality issued a proposal to deport them on 14 January 2019. After submissions invoking family and constitutional rights, deportation orders were made on 22 February and notified on 25 March 2019. The applicants filed the present proceedings on 2 August 2019, after earlier proceedings filed by an immigration consultancy without authority had been struck out. Leave for the current judicial review was granted on 14 October 2019, with time extended.
The applicants argued, among other things, that the process breached fair procedures, began before they had been in the State for three months, treated their representations generically, failed to consider their individual circumstances, gave insufficient weight to the second applicant’s minority, and wrongly treated the absence of “insurmountable obstacles” to establishing a family unit in Botswana as a test.
The judge upheld the respondent’s objection that the fair procedures ground was too vague and found no breach had been demonstrated. He held that the three-month provision in the Immigration Act 2003 created an accelerated removal option, but did not prevent the Minister from proposing a deportation order under the Immigration Act 1999. He also noted that the accelerated procedure did not apply to minors.
The court found that the applicants had not rebutted the presumptions that the deportation decisions were valid and that their representations had been considered. It rejected the argument about employment prospects, and said the best-interests points raised in oral argument were not pleaded. It also held that reference to “insurmountable obstacles” was a legitimate consideration, not a legal test.
The judge said that, even if there had been a substantive error, he would have dismissed the proceedings as a matter of discretion because the deception went to the basis of the applicants’ entry and underlay the process they sought to challenge. The order was that the proceedings be dismissed.