The High Court has quashed a deportation order against an Iranian national after finding that the Minister for Justice had not fully assessed his humanitarian representations and had not adequately explained the conclusion that his return would not breach the prohibition on refoulement.
In a judgment delivered on 25 August 2015, Ms Justice Faherty considered a telescoped judicial review application seeking certiorari of the deportation order made on 2 August 2012. The applicant, identified as H. M., had claimed that he would face serious harm if returned to Iran because he opposed the ruling regime and had been arrested there. His asylum application in Ireland was deemed withdrawn after he left the State; he later withdrew his subsidiary protection application.
The court found that the applicant’s solicitor had raised the human rights situation in Iran as a humanitarian reason to grant leave to remain. The Minister’s file analysis addressed the availability of treatment for the applicant’s depression but did not separately examine the humanitarian argument about conditions in Iran. The judge held that this representation required a full and fair assessment under section 3(6) of the Immigration Act 1999. The weight to give it remained for the Minister to decide.
The court also found defects in the section 5 assessment under the Refugee Act 1996. The analysis referred to country information indicating that people opposed to the Iranian regime could face mistreatment, but said that members of political parties might face it, while noting the applicant was not involved in a political party. The judge found that this was not a fair reading of the material, which did not confine the risk to party members.
The analysis also recorded the applicant’s account of a previous arrest and country information that failed asylum seekers who were activists might encounter problems on return. But it did not say whether the Minister accepted or rejected the applicant’s account, or explain how his circumstances supported the conclusion that return would not breach section 5. A later notification letter cited his status as a failed asylum seeker, but the judge held that this could not supply a rationale absent from the file analysis on which the order had been based.
The court did not decide whether the applicant’s account was true or whether he faced a risk in Iran. Those assessments remained for the Minister. The court found substantial grounds to challenge the section 5 decision and, given its findings on both grounds, exercised its discretion to quash the 2 August 2012 deportation decision. It did not itself grant leave to remain or determine the applicant’s protection claim.