The High Court has quashed a Minister for Justice decision refusing a Nigerian woman’s application for an Irish certificate of naturalisation, finding that the reasons given did not support a conclusion that she was not of good character. The application must now be considered afresh by the Minister.
The woman, identified in the judgment as Ms I, applied for naturalisation in November 2015. The Minister refused the application in November 2018, relying on information in a Garda report about two incidents in 2007. The judgment says the report listed Ms I as a witness in each relevant instance. The Minister considered that her failure to disclose the incidents in her application was a matter going to character.
The application form asked whether she had been “the subject of an investigation” by An Garda Síochána. The court found that the two incidents did not amount to investigations of Ms I. In one, Gardaí went to her home after a report that children were not being well treated by a woman there. The court said they were investigating the report’s veracity and recorded Ms I as a witness. In the other, Ms I appeared to have called Gardaí because she believed she and her family were being subjected to racist attacks; Gardaí later listed her as a witness. The court said this could not be described as an investigation of her.
The judge also noted that the Minister’s decision appeared to focus on Ms I’s answer to the application question, rather than the substance of the report. The judgment said “came to the attention of” Gardaí was broader than “the subject of an investigation”, and the Minister’s decision did not state that it concerned adverse attention. The judge observed that the Garda records, which classified Ms I as a witness, tallied with her answer of “no”.
The court said it saw no basis for finding that Ms I had failed to disclose relevant information or that her answers could lawfully support a conclusion that she was not a person of good character. It granted the order of certiorari sought and remitted the matter to the Minister for fresh consideration. The judgment does not itself grant naturalisation or determine the outcome of that reconsideration.