The High Court has refused an anonymised applicant leave to seek judicial review of the Minister’s decision not to revoke a deportation order made against him in 2011. Mr Justice Mac Eochaidh delivered the judgment on 25 July 2016.
The applicant arrived in Ireland in August 2008 and sought asylum. His asylum and subsidiary protection applications were unsuccessful. After a deportation order was made, further representations were considered and the order was affirmed in October 2011. A later application to re-enter the asylum process was refused.
Following litigation over that application, the Minister undertook to withdraw an earlier refusal to revoke the deportation order and to consider fresh representations. The applicant’s solicitors submitted further material in February 2015, arguing that failed asylum seekers returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo faced persecution. The Minister refused the renewed request on 12 June 2015.
The applicant advanced ten grounds for judicial review. He argued, among other things, that he should have been given an opportunity to comment on a UK tribunal decision published after his revocation request; that the Minister had failed to consider or properly weigh the material; and that the decision did not adequately address refoulement, private-life rights or prison conditions in the DRC.
The judge said the Minister was required to consider the revocation case fairly, but was not obliged to debate the issues with the applicant or invite comment on material used in reaching the decision. He followed an earlier High Court ruling on that point and refused relief on the first ground. He also found that the Minister’s decision set out and considered the applicant’s case and the documents submitted, and that the applicant had not established substantial grounds on the remaining challenges.
The court noted that non-refoulement had been addressed when the deportation order was made. It held that the Minister had rejected the claim that new circumstances made deportation unsafe, so a fresh consideration was not required in the revocation decision. The judge also found no demonstrated basis for a separate inquiry into prison conditions, and said no sufficient case had been made concerning interference with private-life rights.
The court’s decision was limited to whether the applicant had shown substantial grounds for judicial review. It did not determine a full judicial review hearing or make a new deportation order. Leave to seek judicial review was refused.