The High Court ruled that a Turkish national had acquired an entitlement to a work permit with the same employer she had worked for while on a student permission, before that permission expired. The court quashed the Minister for Justice’s refusal of her application and remitted the matter for reconsideration of whether a job was available with that employer.
The judicial review was decided by Ms Justice Tara Burns in a judgment delivered on 18 October 2021. The applicant entered Ireland on 29 December 2013 on a student visa, which allowed employment within specified weekly limits. She worked for the same employer from October 2014 until the visa expired on 6 November 2016. Revenue records showed she continued working for that employer until January 2018. Her employment status at the time of the judgment was unknown to the court.
In February 2019, she applied for renewed work permission and a related right of residence under Decision 1/80, an agreement concerning Turkish workers. The Minister refused the application in January 2020, reasoning that the applicant was no longer registered in employment and had lacked permission to remain in Ireland since November 2016. The applicant sought judicial review, arguing that her work history gave her rights under Decision 1/80 despite the expiry of her student permission. The Minister accepted that she had been recognised as belonging to the labour force while her student permission was valid, but argued that this status ended when the permission expired.
The judge held that the applicant had completed more than one year of lawful employment with the same employer while her student visa was still valid. She had therefore acquired, under the first indent of Article 6(1) of Decision 1/80, an entitlement to a work permit for that employer before the visa expired. The judgment said that entitlement carried a related right of residence, and that the expiry of the student permission afterwards did not undo it. The Employment Permits Act did not apply to someone who had already acquired the relevant entitlement under Decision 1/80.
The court found that the Minister had erred in law by deciding the applicant was not duly registered as belonging to the labour force. It did not decide that a job was available: that remained unknown, and the offer of employment exhibited appeared to relate to a different employer. The matter was remitted to the Minister to consider whether a job was available with the employer for whom the applicant had worked from 2014. The court did not consider the applicant’s separate Article 8 private-life claim, as its decision on Decision 1/80 made that unnecessary. It also awarded the applicant her costs.