The High Court has refused to order the Minister for Justice to reconsider a Nigerian-born refugee’s rejected application for Irish citizenship, finding that the Minister could not be compelled to reopen the original decision.
The judicial review concerned the Minister’s refusal in July 2008 to review an earlier decision refusing a certificate of naturalisation. The applicant had sought to quash that refusal and obtain other relief, including an order requiring reconsideration of his original application. Mr Justice Cooke delivered judgment on 18 June 2009.
The applicant, who was born in Nigeria in 1973, came to Ireland in 2002 and was granted refugee status in May 2003. He applied for naturalisation in July 2005. In March 2008, the Minister refused the application, citing the statutory “good character” condition and a file note that he had come to the adverse attention of An Garda Síochána.
The note referred to a 2006 District Court entry recording a charge relating to driving without a licence and failing to produce one, with the outcome stated as “non-conviction, case not called in court”. The applicant’s solicitor later told the Department that he had not been charged or convicted. The applicant said he had shown a photocopy of his provisional licence at a checkpoint in May 2005 and had not been told to produce the original later. The judgment records that no conviction was recorded and that the summons was not served or proceeded with.
The solicitor asked the Department to review the refusal, arguing that an unproceeded allegation could not properly establish lack of good character and referring to the applicant’s refugee status and two Irish-citizen children. The Department declined, stating that applicants who had come to Garda attention were not considered to have sufficient character for citizenship.
The court distinguished between a refusal based on the statutory conditions and a refusal made through the Minister’s discretion. It said a decision based on failure to meet a statutory condition could be open to judicial review, including where fair procedures required reasons to be given. But the original refusal was not before the court; the case concerned only the later refusal to reconsider it. The court also held that it could not compel the Minister to consider waiving the good-character condition under the statutory provision for refugees.
The relief sought was refused. The court said the applicant could make a new application, which the Minister could assess using up-to-date information. Any later refusal based on failure to meet a naturalisation condition could, if challenged, be reviewed on its substantive grounds. The court did not rule on the legality of the original good-character assessment.