The High Court has refused an application challenging the detention of a man at Cloverhill Prison under an immigration deportation order, ruling that his arrest and detention were lawful.
The man, identified in the judgment as HH, brought an application under Article 40.4 of the Constitution. The court had initially granted an order of habeas corpus on an ex parte application and brought him before it the following day. After an inquiry, Mr Justice Bernard Barton found the detention lawful and refused the application. The court said the validity of the deportation order and detention warrant were not challenged; the issue was whether the arrest and detention were an unlawful exercise of executive power in the circumstances.
HH, a Bangladeshi citizen, had been ordered to leave Ireland by 24 March 2019. The notice required him, if he had not left, to attend the Garda National Immigration Bureau in Dublin on 27 March to make arrangements for removal. He attended on that date and again on 9 May, and was told to return on 27 June. The judgment says no removal arrangements had been made or discussed at those meetings.
He was arrested at the Bureau on 27 June under section 5(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1999, which permits arrest without warrant where an officer reasonably suspects that a person subject to a deportation order has failed to leave within the specified time. The judgment records that the sole stated ground for arrest was his failure to leave by the deadline. Removal enquiries began on 4 July; flights were booked the following month for a planned deportation on 5 August, within the statutory eight-week detention period.
HH had applied on 22 March for the deportation order to be revoked. That application was still pending when the court considered his detention. The judgment records that the Minister intended to continue with deportation. It also notes there was no evidence of an impediment to removal or an intention to evade it beyond HH’s failure to leave by the deadline.
The applicant argued that detention was disproportionate and unnecessary because he had complied with the notice’s other requirements and removal arrangements were not underway when he was arrested. The respondent argued that arrangements did not have to be in place before an arrest under section 5(1)(a), provided the purpose was to carry out deportation.
Justice Barton held that arrangements need not have been made before arrest. Detention must serve the purpose of deportation within a reasonable time, and authorities must end it if removal becomes impossible or is likely to be significantly impeded within the statutory period. The court found no such impediment here and concluded that the detention was lawful.