The High Court has refused a married couple’s application for judicial review of a decision not to revoke a deportation order against the husband, finding that the Minister had lawfully considered their constitutional and family life rights.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh on 14 April 2015, concerned S. A., a Nigerian national who had claimed asylum in Ireland under a false identity and said he was from Sierra Leone. His asylum and subsidiary protection applications were refused, and a deportation order was made in 2011. He later sought revocation of the order, relying on his marriage to N. A., an Irish citizen.
The couple argued that the Minister’s decision was irrational and legally flawed because it did not begin from an express recognition of a married couple’s prima facie right to live together. The judge rejected that argument. He said the decision acknowledged that constitutional rights arose from the marriage and family life, and that those rights were not absolute. The Minister was not required to state expressly that the couple had a prima facie right to reside together.
The court also considered information given in evidence during an earlier, interlocutory injunction application in December 2014. The judgment records that S. A. had not told N. A. before their marriage that his asylum and subsidiary protection claims had failed or that a deportation order had been made. N. A. said she believed his asylum application was still pending and would not have married him had she known about the order. The judge also noted that the couple had not informed the Minister of their relationship before marrying, although it had begun before the deportation order.
The judge said the Minister was entitled to weigh the couple’s rights against the State’s interests in maintaining the integrity of its immigration system. He considered the circumstances of the marriage, including what he described as S. A.’s serious dishonesty and N. A.’s reckless failure to inquire into his immigration status. He concluded that the prima facie right to live together in Ireland was outweighed in the circumstances.
The court found the Minister’s assessment lawful and proportionate. It added that, even if that conclusion were wrong, it would refuse the requested remedies because of the applicants’ conduct and information that had emerged during the earlier injunction proceedings. The court refused the relief sought. The judgment does not itself make a new deportation order; it rejects the challenge to the refusal to revoke the existing order.