The High Court has refused all relief sought by two children born in Ireland who argued that they had acquired Irish citizenship at birth through their fathers’ refugee status.
In a judgment delivered on 10 November 2017, Ms Justice Stewart held that the fathers’ refugee status had been obtained through material false or misleading information. Its revocation therefore rendered the status void from the outset, the court found, and invalidated the children’s citizenship derived from it.
The cases were heard together by agreement. In the first, a Somali mother and her minor son challenged a 2015 decision that the boy was not an Irish citizen. His father had been recognised as a refugee in 2008, and the boy was issued an Irish passport in 2010. The father’s refugee status was revoked in 2011 after the authorities found that information he had supplied was materially false or misleading. The mother later received subsidiary protection.
In the second case, an Afghan minor sought an Irish passport. His father’s refugee status had been granted in 2006 and revoked in 2013. The passport refusal was upheld on appeal. The father had also returned temporarily to Afghanistan, but the judge said the applicants’ argument that this return alone prompted revocation overlooked the false and misleading information that was central to the decision.
The applicants argued, among other things, that refugee-status revocation operated only prospectively and that children should not lose citizenship because of their fathers’ conduct. They also disputed whether residence based on the fathers’ status could be excluded when calculating the statutory residence period for citizenship. The State respondents argued that residence obtained through deception could not count towards citizenship eligibility and that the revocations operated from the outset.
The judge said the children were not to blame for their fathers’ actions, but held that residence relied on for citizenship under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 had to be lawful, bona fide and regular. Residence based on fraud, misrepresentation or deceit could not qualify. She concluded that neither child was entitled to Irish citizenship or a passport on the basis of the fathers’ unlawfully obtained refugee status.
The court also rejected the argument that a future effective date stated in the Afghan father’s revocation letter changed the legal effect of the decision. The judge held that an official’s stated date could not alter the legal position if the declaration was void from the outset.
Both children had, by the hearing, received protective status through applications made on their behalf. The judge said they might later be able to apply for citizenship after meeting the relevant residence requirements. She refused all relief sought in both proceedings.