The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by a mother and her son against the High Court’s refusal to quash the Minister’s decision not to revoke their deportation orders. It also refused to restrain their deportation by injunction, finding no arguable case and no new or previously unavailable circumstances to justify that relief.
The appeal concerned the Minister’s decision, affirmed on 25 February 2013, not to revoke orders made on 9 May 2012. The deportation orders themselves had not been challenged in these proceedings or any other proceedings before the Court. The Supreme Court heard the judicial review appeal and the injunction application together.
The mother had arrived in Ireland in September 2006, and her son was born here the following month. He had lived only in Ireland, but was not an Irish citizen and was entitled to Nigerian citizenship. His father, the mother’s husband, and both sides of the child’s extended family lived in Nigeria. The judgment said there was no suggestion that the family faced persecution there.
The appellants argued that the Minister’s decision-making breached fair procedures, including through the use of country information they considered deficient and insufficient weight being given to material they had submitted. The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court that the submitted material was general, not specific to the family’s circumstances, and that the more recent information used by the Minister was publicly available. It found no fundamental error in the consideration of the information and no breach of fair procedures.
The Court also upheld the High Court’s assessment of the family’s Article 8 rights. It accepted that the child’s education and life in Ireland engaged those rights, but agreed that the Minister could take account of the family’s ties to Nigeria and the mother’s precarious immigration status. The Court found the deportation decision had not been shown to breach the family’s private or family life rights.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and refused the injunction. It said an injunction might be possible in radically changed circumstances or where information could not previously have been obtained, but those conditions did not arise. It also ordered the appellants to pay, on a costs-thrown-away basis, the Minister’s costs of written submissions responding to a late application for an EU law reference, which had been withdrawn.
At the end of the case, the Court asked that the family’s circumstances be brought to the Minister’s attention. The Minister’s counsel assured the Court that the circumstances would be carefully reviewed and monitored. The judgment observed that issues of ministerial discretion could arise, but said the Court’s duty was to apply the law.