The High Court has quashed a deportation order against an anonymised Somali doctor, finding errors in how the Minister for Justice assessed her case. The court also awarded her costs against the Minister.
In a judgment delivered on 30 April 2021, Ms Justice Tara Burns found that the Minister had wrongly dismissed country information about the treatment of refugees in Hungary, failed to consider whether evidence rebutted the presumption that the applicant’s fundamental rights would be respected there, and misapplied the statutory assessment of her employment prospects.
The applicant had refugee status in Hungary, where she said she faced racist abuse, assault and fear of sexual violence while living in communal shelters. The judgment says the Minister did not controvert her account. She came to Ireland in February 2016 and was required to leave direct provision accommodation after her Irish asylum application could not be considered because she already held refugee status in another EU state. She had been homeless since May 2016.
The Minister made a deportation order in January 2020, directing her deportation to Ukraine. The applicant sought judicial review, and the High Court granted leave in March 2020 to challenge the order.
The Minister had treated country information about anti-immigrant sentiment in Hungary as relating to asylum seekers and irregular migrants rather than recognised refugees. The judge found that the information also concerned refugees and their treatment by wider society. The Minister therefore erred in dismissing it without assessing the applicant’s representations in light of it.
The judge also found that the Minister had relied on Hungary’s EU membership without considering whether the presumption that the applicant’s fundamental rights would be upheld had been rebutted. The applicant’s account, the country information and other material identified in the judgment required consideration of that question.
On employment, the Minister’s examination accepted that the applicant’s prospects would be reasonable if she had appropriate immigration permission, but then discounted that assessment because she lacked permission to remain or work in Ireland. The judge said employment prospects had to be considered separately before being weighed with the other statutory factors.
The court rejected the applicant’s argument that an Article 8 proportionality assessment was required. Applying its recent decision in another case, it held that a migrant with precarious status could not assert Article 8 rights without exceptional circumstances, which had not been established.
Because the errors in assessing country information, fundamental rights and employment prospects vitiated the deportation decision, the court granted the relief sought. It did not decide the separate claim that deportation would breach Article 3 by exposing the applicant to inhuman or degrading treatment.