The High Court struck out judicial review proceedings brought by F.N. (Malawi) and C.N. after the child whose expected birth underpinned the case was born. The court made no order as to costs and noted that the first applicant’s bail order had ended.
The applicants had sought a standalone injunction while the first applicant pursued an application to revoke a deportation order. That application was premised on the forthcoming birth of a child. At the hearing, counsel for the applicants accepted that the proceedings had become moot.
The applicants sought their costs, arguing that an injunction had kept the first applicant in Ireland until the child was born. The respondents sought no order as to costs. The judge rejected the argument that the passage of time after an interim injunction, which allowed the applicants to obtain what they wanted in the short term, automatically amounted to an “event” entitling them to costs. In the absence of such an event, the court said, the default was no order as to costs.
The judgment records that the first applicant was born in Malawi in 1984, came to Ireland lawfully as a student in 2012, returned to his home country in 2014 and came back to Ireland on 21 June 2015, when he claimed asylum on a false basis. His partner, also a protection seeker, became pregnant in December 2018. The first applicant failed to present to the Garda National Immigration Bureau and was arrested on 9 May 2019.
The court had granted an ex parte injunction against deportation on 22 May 2019, continued it on 27 May, and granted bail in the proceedings on 6 June. It ordered the proceedings struck out and made no order as to costs. It also noted that the bail order had ended, directed the first applicant to present himself forthwith to the Garda Síochána, and said he was liable to re-arrest without further notice.