The High Court has refused two asylum seekers’ applications for judicial review over their inability to work while their protection claims were being determined. Mr Justice McDermott ruled that the Refugee Act barred the applicants from seeking or taking employment during that process and did not give the Minister discretion to grant them work permission.
The applicants, identified in the judgment as N.H.V. and F.T., had asked the Minister for temporary permission to reside and work in Ireland. Both had received negative recommendations on their asylum claims, but later succeeded in having tribunal decisions quashed and their cases sent back for fresh hearings. They said they faced further delays and argued that the Minister could grant permission under immigration legislation or executive discretion.
N.H.V., a Burmese national, had been offered a chef’s job at St Patrick’s Accommodation Centre. F.T., a Cameroonian national, had been offered work as a gym instructor with Villa Football Club in Waterford. The judgment records that both were living in direct-provision accommodation and receiving €19 a week. Those circumstances were among the hardships they described; they were not findings that either applicant had a legal entitlement to work.
The court held that section 9(4) of the Refugee Act 1996 prohibited asylum applicants in their position from seeking or entering employment until their applications were finally determined. It found section 9(11) did not create a general power to waive that restriction. The judge said that provision addressed situations where an applicant acquired a separate legal entitlement to remain in Ireland, such as through rights arising from an Irish citizen child.
The court also rejected the applicants’ arguments that the restriction breached constitutional rights, the EU Charter or Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It found that Ireland had not opted into the EU reception directives relied on by the applicants, and that the Charter did not apply to their claims. On Article 8, the judge distinguished their case from one involving a deliberate policy of delaying asylum decisions for years. The judgment attributed the delay after the earlier tribunal decisions were quashed to a backlog and pressure of work, rather than a deliberate policy.
The judge noted that delay in completing the asylum process might support other claims for relief, including arguments about reasonable expedition or good administration. But it did not, in this case, create an entitlement to work or require the Minister to consider a work-permission application. The court refused both judicial review applications.