The High Court has refused a mother and her three children leave to challenge the Minister for Justice’s refusal to revoke a deportation order against her.
In a judgment delivered on 2 December 2009, Ms Justice M. H. Clark ruled that the applicants had not established substantial grounds for arguing that the Minister’s May 2009 decision should be quashed. The court’s decision was at the leave stage of judicial review; it did not quash the refusal or revoke the deportation order.
The mother, Philomena Igiba, and her children challenged the refusal. Her youngest child, Emmanuela, was born in Ireland in 2003 and is an Irish citizen. The mother and her two older children are Nigerian nationals. A deportation order against the mother was made in July 2006. The judgment says the order’s validity was not challenged in these proceedings.
The applicants argued that the Minister had applied the wrong test when considering whether the family could establish family life in Nigeria, had not identified a sufficient substantial reason for deportation, and had not properly balanced the family’s rights against the State’s interests. The Minister argued that the assessment considered the circumstances presented and that immigration control, alongside the mother’s immigration history, provided substantial reasons.
The judge rejected the challenge to the “insurmountable obstacles” test, finding it was not materially different in this context from asking whether it was reasonable to expect the family to establish family life elsewhere. The court also found the Minister could rely on general immigration-control reasons, provided he assessed the particular facts and weighed the competing interests. It considered the mother’s lack of candour about her time outside Ireland a significant factor in the Minister’s decision.
The judgment noted that the mother and Emmanuela had lived outside Ireland from 2003 to 2006, and that the family’s connections to the State were limited. The court understood that the mother expected all three children to accompany her if she were deported. It concluded that the proposed removal would not rupture the family and that the applicants had not shown an unreasonable or disproportionate decision.
The court refused leave. The judgment records that separate deportation orders had been signed against the two older children in February 2009; the leave application addressed the refusal to revoke the mother’s order.