The High Court quashed a 2009 refusal to issue a residence card to a Somali national, ruling that officials had wrongly required her to provide clear evidence that she lived with her Dutch husband. The court said the couple did not have to reside continuously under the same roof to qualify under the applicable rules.
The applicants had sought judicial review of the Minister for Justice’s decision of 17 August 2009. The woman had applied for a residence card as the family member of an EU citizen. The court heard that the couple married in Ethiopia in 2004 and lived together in Ireland from January 2005. They said they decided to live apart temporarily in July 2008 because of marital difficulties.
The refusal cited missing documents, insufficient particulars and a lack of clear evidence of the woman’s Irish address and shared residence with her husband. The judgment records that she had told officials she was living in Killinarden while her husband was at a Castleknock address. The Minister’s file note said a requested landlord’s letter had not been provided and described the address information as confusing. The court said the Minister was entitled to establish where an applicant actually lived in the State, but that issue was distinct from requiring spouses to live together.
Justice Cooke found that making shared residence a condition was an error of law and incompatible with the governing EU rules. The court quashed the refusal insofar as it rested on that requirement. It did not grant the requested declaration that the woman was entitled to a residence card, and it did not decide every challenge raised by the applicants.
The court said the applicants still had to satisfy the Minister that the other conditions were met. The existing administrative review became redundant, and the EU Treaty Rights Section would have to make a new decision on the application, considering the information submitted. The judgment also said that, while the new decision was pending, the family member’s entitlement to remain continued and the acknowledgement of the original application remained valid evidence of exercising that right.