A Nigerian who was within minutes of marrying his Irish teenage bride-to-be was yesterday evening facing a return to Africa after a High Court refusal to let him challenge his deportation from Ireland.
Mr Femi Adesoji was arrested by Garda immigration officers on January 24th as he turned up to wed a hairdresser, Ms Laura Behan, of Avondale Drive, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, at Carlow Registry Office.
The court was told he had been ordered by the Minister for Justice on July 11th last year to be deported but had not told his fiancee, nor had he turned up at his local Garda station as required to facilitate that order.
A stay on his deportation from Ireland expired at 5 p.m. yesterday. Since his arrest, the Nigerian has been detained in Mountjoy Prison. He arrived in Ireland in 1999. In court yesterday, his counsel, Mr Henry Abbot SC, said it seemed the whole purpose behind his client's arrest was not to execute a valid deportation order but to prevent him and Ms Behan from getting married. It was an abuse of process. The couple, he said, had decided to marry last autumn but in January sought and obtained a Circuit Court order exempting an obligation to give three months notice of the marriage.
Both Ms Behan and Mr Adesoji, he submitted, were being denied the right to marry and have a family as provided for under Articles 40 and 41 of the Constitution. Saying he wanted leave to bring judicial review proceedings, Mr Abbot said he was seeking an order directing the Minister to revoke the deportation order, and/or postpone it, or grant a residency right to enable Mr Adesoji and his intended spouse to execute their right under the Constitution to become a family. Counsel for the State, Mr Robert Barron , said after due consideration the Minister had decided to deport Mr Adesoji and the Nigerian was told he was being removed from this country by December 28th last at the latest.
The Minister on Wednesday last had been asked in a letter to revoke his deportation order.
Mr Adesoji when apprehended on January 24th had been arrested at the first available opportunity by the Garda. Any right a person might have to get married, he said, was overridden by the Minister's power to deport.
Mr Justice Finnegan said that while he had considerable sympathy for the applicant, he could not see how the arrest and deportation could amount to an infringement of a Constitutional right.Declining to grant permission to seek judicial review, the judge also refused leave to appeal.