The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by an Irish citizen and her Ethiopian husband over the refusal of his application for a long-stay family visa. The court found no error in the High Court’s judgment upholding the Minister for Justice’s decision.
The appeal concerned a visa application made in 2021 by the husband, who sought to join his wife in Ireland. The couple married in Ethiopia in 2019. The judgment said the validity and genuineness of their marriage were not in dispute.
The Minister upheld the visa refusal in November 2021. The decision cited the sponsor’s failure to meet the financial criteria in the State’s family reunification policy, concerns about a possible burden on public resources, and insufficient evidence about the couple’s relationship and contact. The couple accepted that the financial threshold was not met but argued that exceptional circumstances justified granting the visa.
The Court of Appeal rejected challenges to the Minister’s assessment of the financial and relationship evidence, and to the High Court’s review of that decision. It accepted that the decision’s description of the wife as “predominantly” reliant on social welfare was inaccurate, since the relevant period was about four or five months, but said the error did not undermine the overall conclusion.
The court also considered the couple’s arguments under Article 41 of the Constitution and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It found that the Minister had considered their circumstances and that refusing the visa was not disproportionate. The judgment said the evidence did not establish insurmountable obstacles to the couple living together in Ethiopia. It stressed that this assessment did not call the marriage’s validity or genuineness into question.
The judgment discussed photographs submitted to support an allegation that the husband had been beaten in Ethiopia. The court said the person in the photographs could not be identified and that there was no medical report or other independent evidence establishing the alleged assault. It also described the material about risks in Ethiopia as limited.
The court’s conclusion was that it could find no error in the High Court judgment warranting the appeal being allowed. It noted that the couple could make a fresh visa application based on their updated circumstances and said no adverse findings had been made that would prejudice a future application. The court’s provisional view was that the Minister should receive the costs of the appeal, while allowing the couple to request a short hearing on costs.