The High Court refused leave for an Algerian national to pursue a judicial review challenge to a deportation order, holding that his departure from Ireland and subsequent asylum process in the United Kingdom had made the case moot.
Mr Justice Eagar delivered the decision on 31 July 2015. The hearing concerned a preliminary issue: whether the court should entertain the proceedings. By the hearing, the only relief still sought was an order quashing the deportation order made in May 2012.
The applicant arrived in Ireland in August 2009 after an unsuccessful asylum claim in the UK and applied for asylum here. His claim was refused, as was an appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. In October 2011 he applied for subsidiary protection and leave to remain on humanitarian grounds. The Minister refused subsidiary protection in May 2012 and made a deportation order dated 3 May 2012. The applicant was notified of it on 9 May. He began these proceedings in June 2012.
The court heard that the applicant left Dublin by bus for Belfast on 12 December 2012 and claimed asylum in the UK. UK authorities later sought his return to Ireland under the Dublin Two Regulations. The Irish authorities refused the request, and the UK withdrew it in August 2013.
The respondents argued that the challenge was moot, futile or academic, and that judicial review is discretionary. The applicant’s counsel disputed that there was no live issue, arguing that the order could only be challenged in Ireland and that these proceedings were the available route. An earlier judge had declined to find the application an abuse of process at that stage, leaving the issues for the hearing.
Relying on Supreme Court decisions concerning deportation orders and mootness, Mr Justice Eagar held that the applicant’s departure and pursuit of asylum in another state put him in the same position as a person subject to an extant deportation order. He said the applicant’s actions rendered the proceedings moot. Separately, exercising the court’s discretion, he found that the applicant’s conduct disentitled him to relief.
The court did not decide the underlying challenge to the deportation order. It refused leave for the certiorari application at the telescoped hearing.