Thirty Romanians failed in their High Court appeals yesterday against decisions refusing them refugee status or asylum.
Mr Justice O'Donovan said he was not satisfied there was any evidence to support the Romanians' claims that the State had failed to comply with procedures when refusing their applications.
Mr Justice O'Donovan said it was clear that the applicants, who had deportation orders made against them or who were threatened with deportation, were naturally disappointed at the refusal of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to grant them asylum.
But the judge said he was not persuaded that there was any evidence to support the proposition that appropriate procedures were not complied with, or that relevant considerations were disregarded, when the decisions to refuse those applications were arrived at.
Before deciding to order a deportation, the Minister must satisfy himself, by appropriate inquiry, that following deportation the life or freedom of the deportee would not be threatened, the judge said.
There was no evidence to support assertions by the Romanian applicants that the State did not act in accordance with and observe principles of natural and constitutional justice.
The applications regarding those for whom orders of deportation had been made and for whom deportation orders were threatened were without substance.
The judge said there had been 50 named Romanians in the original application, but three had been granted refugee status; two applications had been withdrawn because the refugees had been granted residency based on an Irish-born child; 11 refugees had not yet had their applications finally decided; and four others had initiated separate High Court proceedings.
He rejected the argument that, when considering the applications, the State was obliged to take into account the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said he was bound by a 1999 Supreme Court finding that the convention was not part of Irish domestic law and the Irish courts had no part in its enforcement.
In the absence of any authority to the contrary, the judge also rejected the suggestion that Ireland was obliged to have further regard in its legislation and administrative rules pertaining to refugees and asylum-seekers.
Section 5 (1) of the Refugee Act, 1996, provided that "a person shall not be expelled from the State or returned . . . to the frontiers of territories where, in the opinion of the Minister, the life or freedom of that person would be threatened on account of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".
That appeared to be the law which, in this country, governed the situation of persons such as the applicants, the judge said.
He had no doubt that when considering whether the life or freedom of a person, who had applied for refugee status, would be threatened on account of any of the matters in Section 5 (1), the Minister was bound also to have regard to principles of natural and constitutional justice.
This was a basic right of every human being. There was no evidence that the State did not have regard to those principles.