A judge has told the Minister for Justice Alan Shatter he may transfer a heavily pregnant Pakistani asylum seeker by road to Northern Ireland if the UK authorities agree not be remove her from the island of Ireland pending the birth of her child next month.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan refused to grant Rizwana Aslam (27) an injunction restraining her return to the United Kingdom, which Mr Shatter claimed was the proper jurisdiction in which she should seek asylum. He did restrain her transfer by either sea or by air.
"One cannot readily countenance the mandatory transfer of a heavily pregnant woman by sea, not least during winter conditions, with the prospects of gales and turbulent conditions," Judge Hogan said.
"This would represent a test of endurance which no heavily pregnant woman should ever be obliged by State action to face..there would also be the prospect of an early delivery while at sea, perhaps brought on by turbulent conditions," he said.
Judge Hogan said it was appropriate Ms Aslam be treated with particular care and in a dignified and a humanitarian fashion. The parties had agreed Ms Aslam, who was eight months pregnant, could not be transferred by air. There was no question of the Minister transferring her to Pakistan.
He said the State was constitutionally obliged to protect Ms Aslam and take steps to safeguard her unborn child. These obligations meant no steps could be taken as would unnecessarily jeopardise or compromise the life or health of either.
In this respect it was to be naturally assumed that the Minister would see to it that she was medically examined by an appropriate independent specialist and that she would only be transferred in circumstances where it was considered medically appropriate to do so.
The judge said Ms Aslam was a Pakistani national who was pregnant by her fiancée, Fakherr Udin, also a Pakistani national, who had been given asylum status in Ireland in 2008. She had arrived in Ireland via the UK where she had a visa to enter.
When the Irish authorities established her true visa status in the UK Mr Shatter had elected to transfer her to the UK which had agreed to take charge of her asylum application. She had been required to present herself to the Garda National Immigration Bureau in September last and when she had not done so she had been classified as an evader.
She had subsequently been arrested in Galway and, following the current legal challenge, had been granted a stay on her transfer.