A Bulgarian couple has secured leave from the High Court to bring a legal challenge to a deportation order served on them.
Mr Justice Frank Clarke ruled today that Andon Kozhukarov and his partner, Bilyana Spasova, had established substantial grounds for the bringing of judicial review proceedings aimed at quashing the decision by the Minister for Justice to deport them.
They are parents of two Irish-born children, one of whom died when he was four months old and is buried in Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery. They have a second Irish born son, Andi, who is ten months old.
Mr Justice Clarke said there were unusual circumstances to this case. He held the couple are entitled to challenge the Minister for Justice's decision to deport them on grounds of a possible disproportionate interference with their rights to respect for private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
In making the deportation order against the parents, the Minister for Justice failed to consider the tragic and unique circumstances of the case, they claimed.
Last month, the High Court was told the deportation order was made on December 8th, 2004 ,and the couple were informed of it in February of this year.
Mr Kozhukarov and his partner had earlier unsuccessfully applied for asylum here based on fear of persecution on the grounds of their ethnic identity as Romas.
They claimed Mr Kozhukarov was beaten and Ms Spasova was raped by policemen in the Bulgarian town where they lived and that their home was also set alight.