The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by S.S. (Pakistan), holding that his pending residence-card application did not prevent action under an unchallenged deportation order. The court found that he had not established the dependency needed to qualify for a temporary right to remain in Ireland while his application was being considered. It upheld the High Court’s refusal to order his release and concluded that his detention was lawful.
The appeal concerned Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution, which allows an inquiry into the legality of detention. S.S. had challenged his detention after applying for a residence card as the adult dependent child of his father’s spouse, a Romanian national exercising EU treaty rights. He said he had been dependent on his father since his student days in the UK. His father’s marriage to the woman was described in the judgment as a “marriage”; the Minister later considered it a marriage of convenience.
S.S. applied for a residence card on 30 January 2018 and sought an undertaking that the deportation order would not be enforced while the application was pending. The Minister declined. S.S. was arrested on 20 June under the deportation order and was granted bail on 2 July. The Minister refused his residence-card application on 27 June, finding that he was not dependent on the EU citizen. The court noted that, when he was arrested, the Minister had not yet refused his application or revoked his father’s residence card.
The Court of Appeal said that a residence card records evidence of temporary residence rights; it does not itself grant those rights. Under the 2015 Regulations, the right to remain while an application is pending applies to a person who is an actual qualifying or permitted family member. For an adult applying on the basis of dependency, the court held, the applicant must provide evidence sufficiently cogent to demonstrate prima facie dependency. A bare or insufficiently supported assertion does not trigger that protection.
The court found no error in the High Court’s decision that S.S. had not demonstrated entitlement to remain under Regulation 7(6). It therefore upheld the finding that his detention was lawful. The ruling addressed the claimed interim right to remain while the application was pending; it did not grant a residence card or decide that application in his favour.