J.v.V.M. and Others v The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: High Court
• Judge: Ms. Justice Stack
• Judgment Date: 19 September 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IEHC 506
• Docket Number: [Record No. 2025/1273JR]

Between

J.V.V. M.

and

C. DE P.

Applicants

and

The Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration

Respondent

[2025] IEHC 506

[Record No. 2025/1273JR]

THE HIGH COURT

JUDICIAL REVIEW

Ex tempore judgment delivered by Ms. Justice Stack on Friday 19 ^th September, 2025 .

Introduction

1 This is an application to restrain the deportation of the applicants, a young Brazilian married couple who arrived in the State in 2023, and to compel the Minister to make a decision on their applications to revoke the deportation orders which were made in relation to them on 11 December, 2024.

2 There is also a challenge to an application to challenge the decision of the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (“IPAT”) of 21 August, 2025, to refuse to extend the time for their appeal to that body against the refusal of their international protection claims. The applicants had a period of 15 working days from the receipt of letters dated 28 May, 2024, notifying them refusal of those applications, in which to lodge their appeals to IPAT. However, they did not do so until 20 August, 2025. The applicants contend that IPAT applied an incorrect legal test in refusing to extend time.

3 The application for leave and an application for an injunction to restrain the deportation of the applicants was heard on 17 September, 2025. As of that date, the applicants' deportation was scheduled for Saturday 20 September, 2025. It has since been deferred for operational reasons.

Factual background

4 The applicants arrived in the State at Dublin Airport on 28 February, 2023, and made applications for international protection on 3 March, 2023. By letter dated 28 May, 2024, they were informed that their applications for international protection had been refused. In the notifications received from the International Protection Office (“IPO”), they were clearly informed of their right to appeal to IPAT pursuant to s. 41(1) of the International Protection Act, 2015.

5 Enclosed with the letters of notification were detailed information leaflets advising them not only of their right to appeal, but of the procedures relevant to it. Those leaflets clearly recommended that, if an unsuccessful applicant wished to obtain legal advice, they should do so immediately on receipt of the negative recommendation or decision from the IPO. A Legal Aid Board information leaflet was also enclosed and they were further informed that the Irish Refugee Council – Independent Law Centre also provided a limited amount of free legal representation.

6 The applicants never exercised their right of appeal, and by letter dated 10 July, 2024, they were advised that they had been refused permission to remain in the State pursuant to s. 49 of the 2015 Act. They were again advised that deportation orders might be made in relation to them.

7 This letter also informed them that they had the option of returning voluntarily to their country of origin but that if they decided not to do that, or if they did not let the Minister know within the required time frame that they had decided to do that, then the Minister would make a deportation order in respect of them pursuant to s. 51 of the 2015 Act. It was explained that once this was made and served, they would be required to leave the State and remain out of the State indefinitely.

8 On 11 December, 2024, the Minister made deportation orders in relation to the applicants. As part of this process, the Minister also considered whether the prohibition on refoulement contained in s. 50 of the 2015 Act had any application. He decided that it did not, given that their applications for international protection had failed. This is unsurprising given that, absent evidence of a new threat arising in the interim, the rejection of a claim for an application for international protection means that no risk of refoulement arises. This was explained many years ago by Clarke J. (as he then was) in Kouaype v. Minister for Justice [2005] IEHC 380, [2011] 2 I.R. 1. Given that the applicants had not raised any new risk which had arisen – and indeed, it is not clear that they ever made representations to the Minister as to why deportation orders should not be made – the Minister's decision on this point was clearly not only lawful, but correct.

9 The applicants were notified of the making of the deportation orders by letter dated 30 December, 2024. These letters informed them that they were required to leave the State by 2 February, 2025. In the alternative, they were required to present so that arrangements for their deportation could be made, on 12 March, 2025.

10 It appears that the applicants left everything to the eleventh hour and instructed their current solicitors on 7 March, 2025 or at least, his written authority to act on their behalf is dated 7 March, 2025. One can assume that he was consulted only shortly before this authority was drawn up. In any event, on the same day, 7 March, 2025, applications to revoke the deportation order were made pursuant to s. 3(11) of the Immigration Act, 1999.

The applications to revoke the deportation orders

11 The applications to revoke are replete with references to various fundamental right provisions including the Constitution, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and so on, but fail at any point to give any detail as to how any provision of any of these important legal instruments could be engaged in the circumstances of the applicants. Insofar as there is any reference at all to the applicants' circumstances, the applications to revoke simply repeat in very basic terms the same claim made in the applications for international protection which had been rejected ten months previously.

12 These applications therefore contain absolutely nothing that has not been considered in the earlier decisions of the international protection officer (on the international protection applications) and the Minister (when he considered the prohibition on refoulement prior to making the deportation orders). It follows that the making of such these applications cannot give grounds for injunctive relief. This is clear from various Supreme Court decisions including L.C. v Minister for Justice [2007] 2 I.R. 133 and Smith v. Minister for Justice [2013] IESC 4.

13 Furthermore, I cannot see even arguable grounds for contending that an order of mandamus would lie at this stage in respect of the undetermined application to revoke. It is entirely unclear why the Minister is being asked to consider matters that he has already considered as part of his refoulement consideration prior to the making of the deportation order. By that I mean that the Minister noted that anything that might be relevant to the risk of refoulement had already been considered and rejected in the course of the international protection applications. That was not only the correct approach in law, but the only sensible one.

14 Therefore, insofar as any issues surrounding the application to revoke are concerned, I would both refuse leave and refuse an interlocutory injunction.

Application for leave to challenge the refusal by IPAT of an extension of time to appeal

15 As I have already stated, the first instance decisions were made in May, 2024, and the applicants were notified of the making of those decisions by letters dated 28 ^th May, 2024. Regulation 3(c) of the International Protection Act, 2015 (Procedures and Periods for Appeals) Regulations, S.I. No. 116/2017 (“the 2017 Regulations”), prescribes a period of fifteen working days for this appeal. The time for appeal therefore expired on approximately 18 June, 2024.

16 The application for extension of time to appeal to IPAT was made – it would seem on behalf of both applicants — on Wednesday, 20 August, 2025. This application was in very basic and – it has to be said – underwhelming terms, as follows:

“The appellant has experienced difficulty in obtaining reports and the attached report/declaration from Pastor Edenilson Negreli and Pastor Fabiana Garcia have been obtained very recently.”

17 The joint “report/declaration” is of dubious evidential merit, being merely a recitation by two pastors of the applicants' church in Brazil of what they have been told by the applicants. The international protection officer found the applicants' account of events to be unconvincing. However, the weight – if any – to be attached to this “report/declaration” would be a matter for IPAT, if an appeal were ever to proceed.

18 The key issue for these proceedings is that it is dated simply “ 2019”, no date or month being given. In an application to extend time, where there has already been significant delay, it was obviously incumbent on the applicants to say:-

• (i) when precisely they had received this report;

• (ii) in what circumstances they received it and from whom; or

• (iii) why it could not have been submitted earlier.

19 It is also very possibly the case that they...