L. (M.J.) v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform

The grounds on which the applicant claimed relief in the statement of grounds dated 26 th February, 2003 which are relevant for present purposes are the following:

There was before the court on the hearing of the application for leave, which was heard on 31 st October, 2003, a proposed amended statement of grounds dated 29 th October, 2003. In his judgment delivered on 12 th November, 2003 O'Sullivan J. dealt with an application to extend the time to file the amended statement of grounds. Having recorded that there was no evidence before the court as to why the time should be extended, other than that counsel had shortly before 29 th October, 2003 advised the applicant to amend by expanding her original statement, O'Sullivan J. stated as follows:

O'Sullivan J. went on to record that he had ruled that the phraseology in the statement of 26 th February, 2003 was sufficiently wide at para. (e)7 thereof to include a challenge based on the submission that, in reaching a decision to make the deportation order, the respondent had failed to give any consideration to the provisions of s. 4 of the Criminal Justice (United Nations Convention Against Torture) Act, 2000, which prohibits refoulement where he is of the opinion that there are substantial grounds for believing that the deportee would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

The only element of the grounds so set out in the proposed amended statement of 26 th January, 2004 which was not included in the proposed amended statement of 29 th October, 2003, which was before the court on the application for leave, is para. (4). In particular, the underlined portion of para. (1) and the underlined portion of para. (3) were included in the earlier proposed amended statement.

In his judgment O'Sullivan J. identified the four bases on which the applicant sought to challenge the deportation order: that it was in breach of �