The High Court has dismissed judicial review proceedings brought by two Nigerian applicants who challenged decisions refusing them permission to land at Dublin Airport in November 2012. The court refused their application to extend the statutory deadline, finding that they had not given a good and sufficient reason for the delay.
The applicants arrived from Frankfurt on 3 November 2012 with valid Irish visas. An immigration officer refused them permission to land under section 4(3)(k) of the Immigration Act 2004. The notices said there was reason to believe they intended to enter Ireland for purposes other than those they had stated. They returned to Nigeria that day.
The law required a judicial review challenge to be brought within 14 days of notification. The applicants’ current proceedings began in February 2015, more than two years after the refusals. Their lawyers had written to the Irish ambassador in Nigeria on 15 November 2012 seeking an investigation and reversal of the decisions. The Embassy forwarded the complaint to the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service and said it would investigate. The court found that this correspondence did not suspend the deadline and that the applicants had not adequately explained their inaction after the Embassy’s reply in December 2012.
A later letter from the immigration service, in March 2014, said the hotel credit card had been declined and the applicants could not explain their plans in Ireland. In an affidavit, the Garda officer said the hotel booking had been cancelled, the applicants could not identify further accommodation or places they planned to visit, and he refused them entry because he did not believe they were genuine visitors. The applicants filed no reply to that affidavit. The judge also noted a conflict between the officer’s account of when the booking was cancelled and an affidavit from a Dublin resident, filed in an earlier proceeding, who said he cancelled the booking after learning the applicants had returned to Germany.
The judge considered the merits only as part of the extension application and said the respondents had a reasonable likelihood of succeeding against the claim that the refusals were irrational. He also found no arguable basis, on the pleadings and submissions before him, for the applicants’ constitutional and European Convention challenges. These were not final rulings after a full hearing on those claims: the court did not extend time to let them proceed.
The court concluded that the explanation for the initial delay was unacceptable and that the evidence did not set out all the circumstances behind the delay. It dismissed the proceedings as out of time. Because of that decision, it did not decide the respondents’ separate application for security for costs.