The High Court dismissed two applications for leave to challenge deportation orders, ruling that the applicants had not shown substantial grounds for arguing that they could only be removed under EU free-movement rules.
The applicants, identified as K.P. and S.P.P., had each received a ministerial decision that a marriage to an EU national was a marriage of convenience. Neither challenged the prior decision withdrawing or refusing EU Treaty rights in these judicial review proceedings. The judgment records that the cases concerned applications for leave, not full judicial reviews of the deportation decisions.
K.P. had held student permission from October 2008 until October 2013. He married a Latvian woman on 10 September 2013 and later received a residence card based on claimed EU Treaty rights. The Minister revoked the card in June 2016, citing the woman’s residence and employment in Latvia and K.P.’s failure to notify the Department of changed circumstances. A deportation order followed in October 2016.
S.P.P. had lived in the State on student permissions from March 2009 until July 2012. She married an EU national in January 2014 and applied for permission to remain under EU Treaty rights. The application was refused and the refusal upheld on review. The Minister later raised concerns that employment information about her spouse was false and proposed deportation. No representations were made in response, and a deportation order was made in September 2016. The court noted that her application for leave was out of time, but assumed for the purposes of its decision that time could be extended.
Both applicants argued that, as spouses of EU nationals who had received residence cards under EU rules, they could be removed only by a removal order. Justice Richard Humphreys held that the earlier findings that the marriages were for immigration purposes were unchallenged in these proceedings. He said the applicants could not use the deportation-stage challenges to contest those prior decisions. In S.P.P.’s case, he also held that the failure to make submissions in response to the deportation proposal meant she had not shown substantial grounds to challenge the resulting order.
The court distinguished an earlier case, Igunma, which concerned a marriage with no allegation that it was one of convenience. It concluded that the applicants had not shown that EU law prevented deportation orders where residence rights had been withdrawn or refused for abuse of rights, subject to the applicable safeguards and proportionality requirements.
S.P.P. also sought to amend her case to raise an argument under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, relying on later Court of Appeal decisions. The judge refused the request, citing its timing and lack of substance; he noted that the Minister had considered whether deportation could interfere with her private life.
The court dismissed both applications. It ordered each applicant to serve the Chief State Solicitor’s Office with the judgment within seven days and directed that each matter be listed for any application for leave to appeal, if made on notice.