The High Court refused leave for S.K. to challenge a deportation order, finding no legal basis to interfere with the Minister for Justice’s decision. Mr Justice Hogan delivered the judgment on 15 September 2011.
The proceedings concerned a fresh deportation order made on 27 July 2010 and notified to S.K. by letter on 9 August. A previous deportation order had been set aside following an earlier judicial review, after which she was invited to make further representations. The application before the court challenged the fresh order; it did not challenge the Refugee Appeals Tribunal’s rejection of her asylum claim or the refusal of subsidiary protection.
S.K., a Kenyan national who arrived in Ireland in February 2005, said she had been involved with a religious sect in Kenya. She alleged that she was raped at a meeting, witnessed a murder, reported it to police and was later targeted by assailants who killed her brother-in-law by mistake. She said police made arrests in connection with the reported incidents, but those arrested were released. These were her claims as recounted in the judgment.
The Minister had rejected her subsidiary protection application in December 2009 and concluded that she had access to protection in Kenya and would not face a risk of serious harm there. In assessing whether to make the deportation order, the Minister considered her representations, including a job offer conditional on permission to work, her nursing qualification, volunteer work and medical evidence. The court noted that the medical material indicated treatment for post-traumatic stress after her arrival, but did not show that she was then suffering from a psychiatric condition. It found no basis to impugn the decision on those grounds.
The judge also considered an isolated reference to Nigeria in the Minister’s file examination, where Kenya was meant. He treated it as a harmless slip in a document otherwise focused on Kenya, and said it did not invalidate the decision. On the risk-of-return issue, he noted that the earlier asylum and subsidiary protection decisions had not been challenged and that the Minister had addressed the issue. He also referred to the absence of independent evidence supporting S.K.’s account and to the functioning police and legal systems in Kenya.
The court rejected the challenge to the general nature of the Minister’s reasons, concluding that the stated public policy and common good rationale was adequate. It refused leave under section 5(2) of the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000. The ruling was a refusal of leave in these proceedings; the judgment did not set aside the deportation order. Hogan J. recorded personal sympathy for S.K. and her efforts to make a new life in Ireland, but said there was no legal basis to interfere.