The High Court has refused a Malaysian man’s application to quash a deportation order, finding that the Minister for Justice had considered his private life rights and that the reasons for the decision were discernible.
The judicial review concerned a deportation order dated 27 March 2014, which the applicant received on 14 April that year. He sought certiorari, an order quashing the decision. The court’s judgment was delivered by Ms Justice O’Regan on 23 February 2017.
The applicant came to Ireland in 2007 with his wife on visitors’ permissions for 90 days. They remained for about two years beyond that period before returning to Malaysia in 2009. He later came back on a one-year student visa, valid from July 2009 to July 2010. His wife and child accompanied him without permission beyond a 90-day visa-exempt period. The couple’s son was born in 2007.
The family’s 2013 representations to the Minister said the applicant had worked since returning to Ireland, paid tax and integrated into society. Documents included tax records and recent payslips. The Minister’s decision accepted that deportation could interfere with private life, but concluded the potential interference would not be grave enough to engage Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The applicant argued that the Minister had failed to give reasons and should have assessed whether deportation was proportionate under Article 8(2). He also argued that his student permission meant he should be treated as a settled migrant for that period.
Justice O’Regan accepted that a person with student permission could be treated as a settled migrant while that permission was in force. The applicant’s private life rights therefore required consideration in the deportation decision. But the judge held that the Minister was not required to conduct an Article 8(2) proportionality assessment in this case.
The judge cited the applicant’s roughly seven years in Ireland by the time of the 2014 decision, most of it without permission, and the limited details given about social ties: walking, shopping and attending church in Lucan. The wife and child had abandoned their own challenges to their deportation orders, which remained in force. The judge also found no submission of exceptional circumstances.
The court concluded that the Minister’s reasoning could be discerned from the decision and was rational. It refused the application for certiorari. The ruling did not quash the deportation order.