Asylum Seeking families lose high Court Case.

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday April 08, 2002 15:30 by -

Report from ireland.com

The High Court has today rejected challenges to deportation made by
two families with Irish-born children.

The two cases concern Czech and Nigerian nationals who have children
born in the State.

Making his ruling today Mr Justice Thomas
Smyth granted the families leave to appeal the
ruling to the Supreme Court.

But he said: "This case not only turns on the
rights of the child but also on the powers of the
Oireachtas to control the passage of aliens into
the country."

The court heard that Czech national Mr David
Lobet applied for asylum with his pregnant wife
and three young children in March 1999. On
November 2nd 2001, his son Kevin was born in Galway University
Hospital. The family is now settled in Clifden.

Mr Lobet’s parents, one brother and one sister are also living in the
State. He has one brother living in the Czech Republic.

The court heard that Mrs Lobet had testified that the family had applied
in vain for asylum in the UK before travelling to Ireland.

The other deportation order being challenged in the High Court today was
against Nigerian national Mr Osyami. He arrived in the State with his
pregnant wife Nora and daughter Emmanuelle on May 6th 2001. Their
son was born in Ireland on October 4th 2001.

The court heard that Mr Osyami claimed he had never applied for asylum
in any other EU state before. But fingerprint evidence later proved he had
previously applied for asylum in the UK. Mr Osyami then testified that he
had entered the UK on September 15th 1999 under a false passport.

Both applications were transferred to the UK - the first EU member state
in which asylum procedures were initiated - under the Dublin Convention.
The Minister for Justice then issued deportation orders under the 1999
Immigration Act, the court was told.

Today Mr Justice Smyth said the court understood that an Irish-born
child did have the right "to live, be reared and educated in Ireland" under
the constitution, and agreed that it had the right to the company of its
parents.

But, he said, "it does not follow from this that the child has the right to
the society of its family in Ireland".

Justice Smyth said he agreed with the State’s view that when
non-national parents of Irish-born children are being deported, the
constitutional rights of their children are best met through the children
leaving with their families.

When those children are capable of independent living, he said, they
could live in Ireland if they chose