A seven-judge Supreme Court has refused to overturn a decision to deport a Nigerian man who claimed the move would interfere with the constitutional rights of his three children who lawfully reside here.
The Chief Justice said the High Court was fully justified in concluding there was no evidence of a “real meaningful relationship” between the man and the children such that his deportation would be an impermissible interference with their constitutional rights to his care and companionship.
The same conclusion is reached when considering his right to family and private life under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell said in a ruling supported by all six of his colleagues in the court.
The man entered the State unlawfully in 2007 and that year married the mother of the three children.
He is recorded as the father on one of the children’s birth certificates and is said to be the father of the other two children, although he is not registered on their birth certificates.
The couple’s marriage via a religious ceremony is not recognised in this State, and they separated in 2014. He was made a joint guardian of the children by a 2015 order of the District Court.
The man was refused permission to remain in the State and the Minister for Justice issued an order for his deportation in 2016.
The High Court refused to overturn the Minister’s decision, saying that breaches of constitutional rights would only arise if it was established that there was a “meaningful involved relationship” between the man and the three children.
In a judgment delivered on Tuesday, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed his appeal against the High Court’s decision.
Mr Justice O’Donnell noted that, before the hearing of the appeal, the Minister granted the man temporary leave to remain in the State under her Regularisation of Long-Term Undocumented Migrants Scheme. The deportation order was revoked, but the court believed the appeal continued to carry a point of general public importance that should be determined.
The court approached the case on the basis the man was indeed the father of all three children.
Mr Justice O’Donnell said it would require “exceptional considerations of particular weight” to prevent the State from requiring a non-citizen here illegally to leave, given the weight that “must be accorded to the fundamental interests of the State in maintaining its capacity to control entry to and exit from the State”.
Here, the man is no longer living with members of the family whose collective rights are said to be breached by his removal from the State, the judge said.
Since the couple was separated in 2014, it is said he was continually involved in his children’s lives, saw them every week and was in regular phone contact with them. No further details were provided as to the nature of the relationship or the anticipated impact his deportation would have on the children, the judge said.
The Department of Social Protection indicated that the mother has been claiming the lone parent allowance since 2013.
Mr Justice O’Donnell said the absence of evidence relating to the man’s relationship with the children was “telling”.
Mr Justice Peter Charleton, Ms Justice Marie Baker, Mr Justice Séamus Woulfe, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, Mr Justice Brian Murray and Mr Justice Maurice Collins agreed with the decision to dismiss the man’s appeal.
