The High Court has quashed only the three-year duration of an exclusion order made against a Romanian national, finding that the Minister gave no reasons for selecting that period. The court sent that issue back to the Minister for reconsideration, while leaving the removal order and the rest of the exclusion order in place.
Mr Justice Max Barrett gave judgment on 19 November 2018 in judicial review proceedings brought by Silviu Voivod against the Minister for Justice and Equality, Ireland and the Attorney General. The Minister had made removal and exclusion orders in December 2017 after Mr Voivod’s conviction for assault causing harm. The exclusion order barred him from re-entering Ireland for three years. A departmental review affirmed the orders in January 2018.
The judgment records that Mr Voivod was convicted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 19 October 2016 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, with 18 months suspended. The conviction followed a violent assault on a college student at Dublin’s Dandelion Bar and Nightclub in October 2014. The department’s review described the attack as showing a “propensity to violence”. The judgment also notes that the victim lost two front teeth, was left with scars and incurred medical treatment costs exceeding €5,000.
Mr Voivod challenged the decisions on several grounds, including that they relied on a single conviction and did not establish a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat. He also argued that removal and exclusion were disproportionate and that the department had not properly assessed his submissions. The court rejected those arguments, finding that the Minister considered his conduct, the relevant legal tests, his family circumstances and the rights of his Irish child. It found no merit in the claim that the submissions had not been adequately assessed.
The court said past conduct alone can, in some circumstances, support a finding of an ongoing threat. It also held that Mr Voivod could not raise a complaint about the assessment of his rehabilitation prospects because he had not made that representation to the department, though it noted that the decisions had addressed aspects of his integration and rehabilitation.
The court identified one legal flaw: the decisions contained no reasoning for choosing a three-year exclusion period. It quashed solely the part of the December 2017 exclusion order, as affirmed in January 2018, concerning its duration, and remitted that aspect to the Minister. The judgment did not quash the removal order or the exclusion order as a whole.