The High Court has refused an applicant’s challenge to a deportation order, declining to extend the statutory time limit for a challenge to an earlier permission-to-remain decision and rejecting his remaining grounds.
Mr X, a Nigerian national who said he was bisexual, argued that the Minister for Justice and Equality had acted unlawfully in refusing permission to remain and in making the deportation order. The Minister had not accepted his account of his sexuality during the international protection process.
Mr X sought to challenge the permission-to-remain decision on the basis that it preceded the relevant recommendation under the International Protection Act 2015. The court said a challenge to the section 39 recommendation had to be brought within 28 days, unless an extension was justified. Mr X’s proceedings began in November 2019, more than two years after the decision process in May 2017.
The judge found no substantial grounds to contend that the recommendation was invalid. The wrong person had been named in one section of the report, but the court considered it clear that the report concerned Mr X and that the recommendation was meant to apply to him. The error was corrected promptly. The court also found no good and sufficient reason to extend time, noting that Mr X had legal advice and had not raised the issue earlier. It rejected the argument that a July 2019 notification reset the time limit. The court therefore did not decide the underlying challenge to the permission-to-remain decision.
On the deportation order, Mr X argued that the Minister had not properly considered his submissions about the risk of return to Nigeria, where he said LGBTI+ people faced mistreatment. The court found that the submissions and country information had been considered before the order was made. It also held that the notice of deportation gave reasons for the order, including the refusal of international protection and permission to remain, and the Minister’s conclusion that the prohibition on refoulement was satisfied.
The court declined all relief sought in the notice of motion. It made no order on its separate observations about aspects of the earlier asylum assessment, which it said were outside the focus of this application.