Deportees struggle for help in legal holidays

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell is turning his back on the rule of law by allowing mass deportations during court holidays, a solicitor said yesterday.

Mr Con Pendred, who specialises in immigration law, said the political authorities knew it was extremely difficult for deportees to get legal assistance during the months of August and September.

“They know the courts are closed and access to the courts is very restricted,” said Mr Pendred.

“There’s only one duty judge, so it’s very difficult to get injunctions to stop a deportation. Solicitors are rushing in to save people. It’s very difficult to get barristers.”

Mr Pendred’s comments come amid predictions that a charter plane is due to fly out in the coming days or weeks, involving a mass deportation of Nigerians.

Mr Pendred represented a Nigerian family who the Irish Government was forced to bring back last June after it had evicted them.

The deportation was carried out even though Mr Pendred had secured a High Court injunction restraining the Minister from deporting the Olaniran family.

Mr Pendred said the Government and garda authorities were taking advantage of the legal vacation break to evict people en masse.

“McDowell is supposed to be guarding democracy and the rule of law. But he’s turning his back on that.”

He said Irish people generally had no problem with the State’s right to deport people, if the deportation was conducted properly.

The Irish Refugee Council has repeatedly expressed serious concerns over how deportations are carried out. It said no one should be deported until all legal remedies had been exhausted.

An IRC spokesman yesterday said it was “pretty definite” a mass deportation of Nigerian nationals would happen soon.

He said that in this context the Government should fully implement the readmission agreement signed with Nigeria in 2001.

He said under the agreement the Government committed itself to safeguarding the human rights and dignity of those being returned, during the deportation and when repatriation had taken place.

He said that given the lack of independent monitoring there was no way of knowing if these rights were being safeguarded.

He asked what commitment the Government gave that returned persons were not imprisoned or fined purely for having fled to Ireland.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said asylum applicants had their cases assessed at three separate stages - two of them by independent bodies - before they were deported.

She said it was not true to say people could not access the courts in August and that they still could get injunctions.