The High Court has struck out plenary proceedings brought by an anonymised woman seeking to prevent her deportation to Nigeria, ruling that the case amounted to a challenge to the validity of a deportation order that had to be brought by judicial review.
Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh delivered the judgment on 9 May 2013. The defendants, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Ireland and the Attorney General, had applied to dismiss the proceedings under section 5 of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The court dealt with that application before the woman’s request for interlocutory relief to restrain deportation.
The woman, identified in the judgment as F. O., had been refused asylum in 2007. She said she had been accused of killing her husband in Nigeria, ill-treated in custody and feared retribution from his family. A deportation order was made on 17 January 2013 and notified to her by letter dated 31 January. The judgment records that the letter required her to leave Ireland by 17 February and warned that she could be arrested and detained if she did not comply.
Her solicitors asked the Minister to revoke the order under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999, referring to her wish to apply for subsidiary protection. That request did not suspend the order. The judgment records that no subsidiary protection application had been made by the time of the hearing. The woman was arrested and detained on 22 April; proceedings seeking declarations and an injunction were filed the following day. An interim injunction was granted.
The judge found that the requested relief, if granted, would prevent the deportation order from being implemented and would necessarily imply that it was invalid. He also found that the timing and purpose of the proceedings were to prevent the order taking effect. The judgment states that a challenge to the order’s validity had to be brought by judicial review within 14 days of notification, and that the woman had not taken that route.
The court rejected the argument that the proceedings concerned enforcement alone. It distinguished a case where later events could cause an order that was valid when made to lose its validity, and said a request for administrative revocation did not itself suspend a deportation order.
The judge concluded that the plenary proceedings were a collateral attack on the deportation order and struck them out. The ruling determined the defendants’ motion to dismiss; it did not determine the woman’s pending revocation request or make findings on the merits of a subsidiary protection application.