The High Court has refused Fiona Mubango leave to seek judicial review of a deportation order, finding no substantial grounds to challenge the Minister’s assessment of her right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The application concerned a deportation order made on 21 June 2016. Mr Justice Richard Humphreys delivered judgment on 14 November 2016. He also adjourned the matter to allow Ms Mubango to apply for leave to appeal and directed that the Chief State Solicitor’s Office receive a copy of the judgment within seven days.
Ms Mubango came to Ireland from Zimbabwe in December 2001. The judgment records that she had permission to remain until February 2011, though it notes a disagreement in submissions over whether her student visa or dependent permission came first. The judge said she had been in the State without permission since 3 February 2011.
In January 2011, she was convicted of 16 theft counts involving an elderly man for whom she worked as a carer. The theft was valued at about €10,000. The judgment states that no compensation was paid and that she received a three-year prison sentence. She was temporarily released in May 2012.
Two earlier deportation orders, made in February and June 2013, were revoked following separate judicial review proceedings. Before the third proposal, her solicitors made representations about her family circumstances and time in Ireland. The proposal was sent in October 2013, but the letter to Ms Mubango was returned “not called for”. A copy went to her solicitors. No representations were made in response. The deportation order followed in June 2016, and she was notified in July.
Her counsel argued that she was a settled migrant and that the Minister had wrongly concluded that any interference with her private life would not be serious enough to engage Article 8. The judge said the first three years of her stay were on a student visa and therefore precarious. Even assuming she could be treated as settled from 2004 until February 2011, he said her subsequent period of more than five years without permission did not generally engage Article 8 rights. He concluded that the Minister’s assessment had not been shown to be invalid.
The court gave two further reasons for refusing leave. It said the applicant had not made her current arguments to the decision-maker when invited to respond to the proposal, and that her earlier representations did not make the precise case later advanced. The judge also said the court’s discretion weighed against facilitating review in light of the conviction and lack of compensation. He added that the Minister could lawfully have concluded that the factors favouring deportation outweighed her Article 8 rights.