The High Court made no order as to costs after an immigration judicial review became moot when the applicant received permission to remain in Ireland for 12 months.
The case concerned E.E.O. (Nigeria) and the Minister for Justice and Equality. On 26 March 2018, when the applicant attended the Garda National Immigration Bureau to renew his permission, he was handed an unsigned draft proposal to deport him. The draft incorrectly stated that an application for permission to remain had been refused.
The applicant’s solicitors asked the State to revoke the draft. The applicant then applied for judicial review on 9 April 2018. The court directed that the application for leave be made on notice and that the case proceed by way of a telescoped hearing.
On 1 May, the State said the unsigned draft had been issued in error and should be disregarded. On 9 May, the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service granted the applicant permission to remain for 12 months on a stamp 4 basis, following applications he had made in 2016. The judge said that grant was unrelated to the proceedings, which had become moot before the hearing. The only issue left was costs.
Justice Richard Humphreys said the court should lean towards making no costs order where a case becomes moot because of a change in circumstances that has no causal connection with the proceedings. He also said the statement in the draft that an application had been refused was a mistake.
The judge said there had been no proposal letter, only an unsigned draft, and described the proceedings as “entirely misconceived”, while noting the applicant was not entirely at fault. He said judicial review of a mere proposal was appropriate only in the most exceptional circumstances, and that correspondence or submissions about the apparent error could have resolved the matter without court proceedings. He considered the application unnecessary and inappropriate and said it had wasted court time and made an improvident demand on limited judicial resources.
The court made no order as to costs. It did not determine a challenge to a deportation decision; the judgment described the document at issue as an unsigned draft, later withdrawn as an error.