Madam, - The recent case of Rev John Achebe concluded with the setting aside by the Garda National Immigration Bureau of its decision to refuse him permission to enter Ireland. That decision is, however, rendered largely meaningless for other cases by the refusal of the GNIB to disclose any of its reasons for setting aside the decision.
The decision to refuse permission to "land" involved, by all accounts to hand, asking a few cursory questions about whether Rev Achebe was a cousin or not of his host, and about whether he had enough luggage. Rev Achebe and his host both explained that in Nigeria "cousin" means a level of consanguinity that prevents endogamy.
On the basis of such responses, the GNIB - deciding that the Nigerian notion of cousin did not correspond to its notion of cousin and that Rev Achebe's trolley bag should in any case have been much bigger if it were to contain priestly vestments, etc - refused permission to land. There was to be no right of appeal or further enquiry.
Rev Achebe, who was in possession of a valid tourist visa and a number of other identity documents, was, by his own account, then brought to Cloverhill prison, denied water, denied food, denied access to a lawyer, denied medical assistance, was strip-searched in front of other prisoners and prison officers, was incarcerated with four others prisoners, sharing an open toilet where defecation is performed in the society of others, and within 24 hours was removed to Dublin Airport for deportation.
This deportation would have gone ahead except for what the GNIB openly admits was the intervention of the Nigerian ambassador, who gave various undisclosed personal assurances to the GNIB.
As Rev Achebe's solicitor, I subsequently found it impossible to obtain any articulate statement from the GNIB of any reasons for the decision to refuse him permission to enter the country, or for the setting aside of that decision. It further proved impossible to obtain the memoranda/notes, if any, on which these decisions were "grounded". All one knows is that the decision has now been set aside.
Such silent setting aside fails to exhibit any transparency, uniformity, consistency, proportionality, or openness to adversarial rational examination. The principle of the equality of persons and the principle of sufficient reason - requiring that decisions such as this, having a public consequence, be justifiable in articulate public discourse - are simply trodden underfoot.
The major difference between Rev Achebe and other tourist visa holders from Nigeria and other countries who are refused permission to enter is that the latter are deported without the possibility of any appeal or publicity. They are herded and expelled without ceremony (except for the acts of solicitude described above).
The inscrutable decisions of the GNIB at Dublin Airport (with their paraphernalia of incarceration, strip-searching, expulsion, denial of the right to be heard) are all executed clandestinely with industrial precision, timing and speed: a sort of mechanised Yeatsian rough beast that "slouches towards Bethlehem".
Where did we see this kind of thing before? - Yours, etc,
GERARD CULLEN, Solicitor, Carrick on Shannon, Co Leitrim.