The Supreme Court has ruled that a grandmother should not be permitted to return to Ireland to help raise her three grandchildren, two of whom are Irish citizens.
The applicant was deported to Nigeria in 2009, having come to Ireland in 2006 seeking asylum on the grounds of persecution. Her asylum application citied no grounds to fear such persecution, instead she presented a case for staying in Ireland to look after her daughter and grandchildren.
A Department of Justice official accepted that deportation may interfere with the right to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) but felt the applicant knowingly circumvented immigration laws by claiming asylum when there was no reason for requiring the protection of the State. He also found no insurmountable obstacles to the family returning to Nigeria as a whole, despite the fact that two of the children are Irish citizens, and all three children had lived most of their lives in Ireland.
The Court held that while it was apparent that the applicant was in Ireland because she was important to her family, as a foreign national she entered the country on foot of the ’untenable’ argument she was seeking asylum. It ruled that foreign nationals have no general entitlement, either under the Constitution or the ECHR, to establish a domicile without the appropriate permission.
Click here to read the full judgement, and click here to read the dissenting arguments.