Imagine that the authorities send you a letter demanding you do something: say, pay a sum of money or appear in court. But you never get the letter and then one day the gardai come and lock you up.
You'd be angry, feel hard-done by, but at least you'd have access to a solicitor. And it could be worse - you could be a non-national whose application for asylum has been rejected. Notwithstanding the vagaries of the postal system, such a person faces immediate deportation, with no resource to lawyers and the possibility of persecution back home.
Unless, that is, you are Dimitru Popa, the first asylum-seeker to be returned to Ireland in mid-deportation. A combination of luck, legal work and confusion between the authorities conspired to bring Popa back from Amsterdam, where he was en route to Romania.
Recent events have shown how little sympathy there is for asylum-seekers generally. Mustering an understanding for Mr Popa's case is even more difficult: a 26-year-old, claiming asylum because of his family's links to the former Communist regime, rejected at the first and appeal stages, living under a false name. None of this should obscure the fact that the nub of the issue is whether the serving of a deportation order by registered mail constitutes fair notice in such an important matter .
If so many summonses in Irish law are served in person, even for minor matters, why is it judged sufficient to send a registered letter to a deportee?
In the Popa case, the deportation notice sent to him was returned undelivered. The Department of Justice was aware, therefore, that no notice had been received, but it doesn't appear to have contemplated any further action.
On the other hand, the Department could argue that personally serving deportation notices on every failed asylum-seeker would be cumbersome and hugely expensive.
In addition, what incentive is there for someone served with such a notice to stay at the same address, waiting for the immigration officer's knock at the door, when all stages of the asylum process have been gone through? This is one reason why, of 473 deportation orders issued this year, only 50 have been implemented.
Most deportees are never heard of again. We will never know of their fate. Mr Popa was lucky. His solicitor got a High Court hearing within an hour of being notified of his case. Mr Justice Herbert offered him injunctive relief, on the understanding that Mr Popa was in the State.
In fact, he was on a flight to Amsterdam, accompanied by detectives from the National Bureau of Immigration. His solicitor, Mr Con Pendred, went to the airport and made contact with the pilot, who informed the Garda of the order. Unusually, and because of the circumstances, the order was delivered orally, rather than on paper.
It is uncertain what happened then, but Mr Pendred says the Department of Justice instructed the detectives to bring Mr Popa home. The Department has declined to comment, saying the matter is sub judice. Official sources point out, however, that deportation orders are normally implemented by the gardai.
The Department is satisfied that it acted correctly and is likely to contest any application by Mr Pendred next week for a judicial review of the case.
It is only after that hearing that it will become clear what ramifications Mr Popa's case will have for hundreds of other deportation orders served by the Department of Justice this year.