The High Court has refused an injunction sought to prevent the deportation of an anonymised Nigerian woman while her infant twins’ asylum applications are considered. The court also refused all other reliefs sought. It did not make deportation orders for the twins, and its decision left the existing orders for the woman and her two older children unchallenged.
Ms Justice Clark delivered judgment on 2 April 2009, following a hearing at the King’s Inns on 26 March. The woman had received a deportation order with her older son in January 2009; a separate order had been made for her older daughter. The twins were born in Ireland in August 2008, but the Minister was not told of their birth while considering the family’s request for leave to remain. The twins’ asylum applications were lodged on 16 February 2009, after the mother had been asked to attend the Garda National Immigration Bureau ahead of deportation.
An interim injunction had been granted on 25 February, after the court was told that the twins would be left without a parent or guardian in the State if their mother were deported. At the later hearing, the court learned that their father was also in the State. The judge said the injunction had been obtained on a false averment that the twins had no other parent or guardian there, and criticised the lack of candour in the ex parte application.
The judge found that the mother had not told the Minister she was pregnant or updated him after the twins’ birth, and that their asylum claims and alleged risks were raised only shortly before the planned deportation. The applications alleged risks from the father’s family, including rituals concerning possession by evil spirits, and a risk of female circumcision for one twin. The judgment noted that this latter fear had not been raised in the older daughter’s asylum application.
The applicants’ counsel argued that deporting the mother would deprive the infants of her care while she was breastfeeding, and that the children’s best interests should take priority. The judge accepted that minors could make separate asylum applications but held that the twins had no right to require their mother to remain in Ireland while those applications were determined. She said their interests could be served by their father, who was also their guardian.
The court said the appropriate course would have been to notify the Minister of the pregnancy or birth and seek revocation of the deportation order on the basis of the new information. The order itself was not challenged in these proceedings, and the judge said decisions about whether, when and how to enforce it remained for the Minister, subject to the limits of law. The injunction application did not determine the twins’ asylum claims.