The High Court has refused a family’s challenge to the rejection of a woman’s Jobseeker’s Allowance appeal, ruling that her unpaid activities at a Dublin charity did not establish that she was a worker and rejecting constitutional and human-rights challenges to the statutory residence requirement.
In a judgment delivered on 20 November 2020, Ms Justice O’Regan refused all relief sought in judicial review proceedings brought by Ioan Razneas, Anisoara Anghel and their two minor children. The appeal at issue was brought by Anghel after the allowance was refused in August 2018. The appeal was disallowed in March 2019 because the Appeals Officer concluded she had not established a right to reside in the State.
The applicants argued that Jobseeker’s Allowance was intended to facilitate access to employment and that Anghel had been a worker during a month at the Mendicity Institution. Her evidence was that she attended four days a week, made items that were sold by the charity and received meals, with the expectation that a paid Community Employment Scheme position might follow.
The court considered the affidavits and the Institution’s May 2018 letter, which described Anghel’s engagement as voluntary and unpaid. The respondents said the Institution was not an approved Community Employment sponsor and that no scheme for which she was eligible had proceeded; that evidence was not challenged. The judge found no mutually agreed promise of subsequent paid work and considered the activities and meals marginal or subsidiary. She concluded that the Appeals Officer’s view—that Anghel was participating as a service user rather than a worker—was not irrational or contrary to law.
The judge also declined to refer the classification of Jobseeker’s Allowance to the Court of Justice of the European Union. She said the High Court and Court of Appeal had already determined that the payment was a special non-contributory cash benefit, to which a habitual-residence requirement dependent on a right to reside could apply.
The family argued that section 246(5) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 was unconstitutional and incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. The judge said the narrow judicial review concerned Jobseeker’s Allowance and could not support a finding that the State had removed all financial support from the family. She also noted the applicants accepted they had not been rendered destitute. She found they had not discharged the burden of showing the residence rule was unlawful or incompatible with the 2003 Act.
The court refused the reliefs sought. The judgment did not grant the allowance or make a new benefits eligibility determination.