Mr. Osheku arrived in Ireland in 1979, claiming he had come on holiday. He married his Irish wife in 1981 and they had an Irish child. The Department of Justice asked Mr. Osheku to leave the country on a number of occasions and in 1983 the Department told him he could no longer remain in Ireland unless he supplied proof that he could support himself and his dependents. Mr. Osheku did not provide this proof and instituted proceedings to obtain an order preventing his deportation. He challenged the validity of the proposal to deport under the Constitution and the Aliens Act 1935, its statutory orders and under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956.
The Court refused to grant the order and held that deportation would not infringe Mr Osheku’s constitutional rights, or those of any of the applicants. The Court held, inter alia, that the right to reside in a place of an individual’s choice is not a fundamental or constitutional right of a citizen and that the applicant’s marriage did not confer immunity from the sanctions of law regarding his continuous breach of the laws of the State.
