Summary: Quinn Applied To Illegal Immigrants

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C) Quinn Applied to Illegal Immigrants Applying the above criteria to illegal immigrants, it can be argued that they should be able to enforce their illegal contracts in cases of exploitation. As mentioned previously, failing to provide employment rights to immigrants is seen as deterring them from entering into illegal employment. However, Batog has stated that illegal immigrants are attracted to the availability of work rather than the availability of employment rights. If employment law protected illegal immigrants, this would act as a deterrent to employers from hiring illegal immigrants, as there would be a greater risk of immigrants seeking compensation for exploitation, making them more expensive to hire. Therefore, one criterion …show more content…

However, employers are actually unjustly enriched when the contracts of immigrants are not enforced, as they do not have to pay them the minimum wage or compensation for exploitation. Therefore, unenforceability is once again counter-productive. As well as this, illegal immigrants are subject to detention or deportation when they are caught working illegally. In Quinn it was held that where there are ‘significant’ adverse consequences for breaching legislation, this is ‘likely to lead to the inference that those consequences are sufficient to deal with the relevant illegality’. Unenforceability in the immigration context therefore satisfies the other two criteria set down in Quinn. The consequences of breaching the Act are sufficient to achieve its purposes as deportation and detention adequately punish the immigrant. Also, it can be argued that it would be disproportionate to impose the extra punishment of unenforceability, as the immigrant is already quite severely punished. Therefore it can be argued that the illegality doctrine actually undermines the protective objectives of employment legislation while at the same time fails to punish employers for, or deter employers from, hiring illegal …show more content…

Recently, the same opportunity has been provided for in the UK in Hounga v Allen . Here, it was stated that public policy arguments in favour of unenforceability could be trumped by the public policy arguments in favour of protecting fundamental human rights. The Hounga decision can provide guidance to Irish courts dealing with these cases in the future and indicates that illegal immigrants should be able to enforce their contracts of employment. It can be argued that if the judicial reasoning in Hounga were followed in Ireland, the Hussein decision would be considered incorrect, as a pubic policy argument in favour of protecting immigrants from exploitation could trump the integrity of the court

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