Ms Justice Hyland delivered a judgment in the Court of Appeal on 17 February 2025 in an appeal brought by I and PI (the “Appellants”) against the Minister for Justice (the “Respondent”). The appeal challenged a High Court decision dated 29 May 2024.
The first Appellant, a Nigerian national, and the second Appellant, a United Kingdom national, married in 2012 and moved to Ireland in 2018. In October 2018, the first Appellant applied for a European Union residency card, initially asserting that the second Appellant was employed in Ireland, which would qualify the first Appellant for residency as a family member of an EU citizen exercising Treaty rights. The application was later amended to state that the second Appellant had sufficient resources and/or was involuntarily unemployed, which would also allow the first Appellant to reside in Ireland under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015.
In 2019, the Minister refused the application, citing allegations of a marriage of convenience and submission of fraudulent documentation. However, in a final decision on 5 December 2022, the Minister did not find evidence to support the claim that the marriage was one of convenience but upheld the refusal on the grounds that the Appellants had provided false or misleading information.
The Appellants challenged the earlier High Court decision in the case on two grounds:
The Court of Appeal found it unnecessary to rule on the first ground. The Appellants succeeded on the second ground, with the Court determining that the Minister failed to adequately consider the second Appellant's claim of having sufficient resources under Regulation 6(3) of the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015 (S.I. No. 548 of 2015), which allows EU citizens and their family members to reside in the State for over three months under certain conditions, including having sufficient resources.
The Court concluded that the Minister's decision focused primarily on the second Appellant's employment status rather than properly assessing whether she had sufficient resources. As a result, the appeal was allowed, the High Court's order was set aside, and an order of certiorari was granted to quash the Minister’s decision of 5 December 2022. The Court directed the Appellants to agree on whether the case should be remitted to the Minister for reconsideration. The Appellants were also presumptively entitled to costs for the appeal.
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