The Court of Appeal has ordered the Minister for Justice to pay the full High Court costs and 70% of the appeal costs of an anonymised man who partly succeeded in challenging immigration-related orders.
The appellant, identified as K, had challenged both a Removal Order and an Exclusion Order dated 27 January 2023. In an earlier judgment delivered on 27 May 2025, the Court of Appeal allowed his appeal in part. It quashed the Exclusion Order but dismissed the remainder of his judicial review application.
The court initially indicated that K should receive his costs in both courts despite achieving only partial success. The Minister objected and argued that the costs award should reflect the unsuccessful challenge to the Removal Order.
Mr Justice Anthony Collins said the arguments directed at the Removal Order substantially overlapped with those concerning the Exclusion Order. The proceedings had also been conducted efficiently and were not sufficiently lengthy or complex to justify dividing costs issue by issue. The litigation could therefore be treated as a single unit for that purpose.
A separate issue arose from K’s conduct during the appeal. He had left the State at an unknown date in November 2024 without having sought a stay of either order. His departure meant that the challenge to the Removal Order had become moot, meaning there was no longer a live dispute requiring a decision on that part of the case.
The court held that K’s own unilateral conduct had caused that mootness. It noted that failure to comply with a removal order is an offence under the applicable regulations and described his approach to the orders as inconsistent with his pursuit of judicial review.
That conduct did not affect the High Court proceedings, so the Minister was ordered to pay those costs in full. For the appeal, however, the court reduced K’s recovery to 70%.
The costs are to be adjudicated if the parties cannot agree them.