A Romanian boy with a life-threatening blood disorder that could cost taxpayers to pay $5 million to treat is a step closer to losing his battle to stay in New Zealand.
Justice Forrest Miller has ruled in the High Court at Wellington that the Deportation Review Tribunal shouldreconsider his case after an appeal by former Immigration Minister David Cunliffe.
He declined Mr Cunliffe's request to reverse the decision.
The Deportation Review Tribunal ruled that Adrian Vilceanu, 11, could remain in New Zealand despite his parents having deliberately withheld details about his costly health status from immigration officials.
Mr Cunliffe said the decision raised serious immigration and legal issues. In February he appealed against the decision to let Adrian and his parents, Cezar and Constanta Camelia Vilceanu, stay.
Adrian has the rare hereditary blood condition thalassaemia major and requires monthly blood transfusions and injections up to seven times a week.
It is estimated that his treatment in the two years until January 2006 cost taxpayers $57,000.
If he were to live to 50, that bill could rise to $5 million.
The tribunal had said that prioritising and allocating funds for healthcare in New Zealand were matters of serious public concern. "However ... the humanitarian factors in this particular case outweigh any of these other considerations."
The tribunal had also considered the skills of Adrian's parents - his mother, an economist, is caring for the couple's healthy New Zealand-born daughter and his father is working as an aircraft engineer.
The couple lied during a medical examination in Romania, incorrectly answering four questions that could have alerted authorities to the financial burden their son would create.
The lawyer representing the couple, David Ryken, could not be reached for comment, nor could Clayton Cosgrove, the new Immigration Minister.
