A CLAIM by a number of Nigerian nationals that deportation orders made under the Immigration Act 1999 must be personally made by the Minister for Justice has been rejected.
However, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan in the High Court said the case involved an important issue of law and he has adjourned the matter to facilitate consideration of whether to certify an appeal to the Supreme Court on a point of law.
He was giving his judgment yesterday rejecting a challenge by a number of Nigerian nationals to an order for their deportation made last July by Noel Waters, director general of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service of the Department of Justice.
The applicants sought judicial review of the orders on the sole ground of the authority of Mr Waters to make that decision in the name of the Minister.
Mr Justice Hogan said the challenge was not to Mr Waters’s general competency and it was clear he was “probably the most experienced civil servant in the State where immigration matters are concerned”, nor was it disputed he had been authorised by the Minister to make deportation orders.
The issue was whether section 3 (1) of the Immigration Act 1999 required the Minister to make the deportation decision personally, the judge said.
While that Act referred constantly to the Minister, the issue was whether the powers conferred implicitly limited the scope of the accepted principle that properly authorised civil servants could make decisions on behalf of Ministers.
While a decision to deport was often complex with significant implications for the affected person, Mr Justice Hogan said he was not satisfied it was “of such intrinsic importance” to the community at large it could only be made by the Minister personally.
While the practice here up to very recently was that a decision to deport was taken by the Minister personally, it was entirely open to the present Minister to change existing practices assuming there was a legal basis for doing so, the judge said.
The Minister for Justice had “many onerous obligations” and it could not be suggested the Oireachtas had intended he should also personally take the decision to deport a given individual in every single case, the judge said.
That would mean the Minister had responsibility “for potentially hundreds of such decisions in any given year”.
He noted the Supreme Court had expressly approved the principle whereby duties imposed upon Ministers and powers given to them are normally exercised, under the authority of Ministers, by responsible officials in their departments.
Ministers also had political responsibility for the acts of their civil servants and were accountable in that regard to the Dáil, he added.
Mr Justice Hogan said he was unaware of any case where the Oireachtas ever expressly imposed a requirement on a Minister to make a personal decision.
However, in matters of significant importance, it was expected a Minister would make decisions personally.
