The High Court has refused a mother and son’s application to quash a decision refusing to revoke their deportation orders. Mr Justice McDermott delivered the judgment on 21 March 2014 in judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Justice and Equality, Ireland and the Attorney General.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as P.O. and S.O., are Nigerian nationals. The son was born in Ireland but was not entitled to Irish citizenship. Their challenge concerned the Minister’s decision of 25 February 2013 refusing an application under section 3(11) of the Immigration Act 1999 to revoke deportation orders made in May 2012.
The mother’s asylum claim included allegations that relatives and the family of a friend who had disappeared threatened her after she converted to Christianity. She said she could not safely relocate within Nigeria and feared for her son. The judgment recounts that the refugee authorities had raised credibility concerns and refused to recommend refugee status. The court was reviewing the later refusal to revoke the deportation orders, not deciding the original asylum claim afresh.
The applicants argued that the Minister relied on deficient country information, failed to give proper weight to material they had submitted, and should have disclosed other information before deciding. The judge found that the Minister had considered the applicants’ material and consulted a broader, more recent range of public sources about police reform and protection in Nigeria. He was not satisfied that the decision-maker had made a fundamental error. The additional material was publicly available and updated information already in the area of dispute, the court said, so there was no obligation to provide it to the applicants before the decision.
The court also rejected the argument that the absence of published policies or guidelines invalidated the decision. It said a section 3(11) decision required fair consideration of the individual case and any relevant changed circumstances. The judge noted that much of the material in the revocation application had been available before the deportation orders, and that the applicants had not challenged those orders by judicial review.
On Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the applicants argued that deportation would unlawfully interfere with their private and family life, including the child’s schooling and access to Irish services. The judge found that the Minister had considered their circumstances, including the child’s education, the mother’s community and educational activities, and family connections in Nigeria. He concluded that the reasons given were clear and that the decision that deportation would not breach Article 8 was reasonable.
The court refused the application for certiorari. It did not quash the Minister’s refusal to revoke the orders; the deportation orders therefore remained in place.