The Court of Appeal has upheld the cancellation of a child’s Irish passport, finding that the passport had been issued in error because the mother’s study permissions did not count towards the residence required for citizenship by birth. It also upheld a High Court order requiring the Minister for Justice to reconsider the mother’s request about her past immigration status.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Faherty on 20 May 2021, concerned two appeals from High Court decisions in judicial review proceedings. The mother and child challenged the refusal of relief against the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who cancelled the passport. The Minister for Justice appealed the order quashing her 22 March 2019 response to the mother’s request.
The child was born in Ireland on 30 January 2018 and received an Irish passport in April that year. The passport was based in part on the mother’s residence permissions between January 2014 and July 2015. Those periods were recorded as Stamp 2 permissions for study, which the relevant citizenship legislation excludes from reckonable residence. After a review, the Passport Office concluded that the mother did not have the required three years of reckonable residence in the four years before the child’s birth and cancelled the passport in September 2018.
The mother argued that she should have received Stamp 3 permissions during the disputed period because of her circumstances and marriage, and that the cancellation process was unfair. The Court of Appeal found that the Passport Office had reassessed the residence record, invited submissions and considered those submissions. It was entitled to rely on the permissions recorded in the mother’s passport unless there was documentary evidence from the immigration authorities supporting a change. The court also rejected the claim that EU law required a proportionality assessment: it said the issue was whether the child qualified for citizenship in the first place, rather than the withdrawal of citizenship previously established.
The court dismissed the mother and child’s appeal against the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It separately rejected the Justice Minister’s appeal, finding that her March 2019 response failed to address the mother’s central claim that separation from her husband should not have prevented her from receiving Stamp 3 status. The court upheld the order quashing that response and remitting the matter to the Minister for further consideration. It did not determine that the mother was entitled to Stamp 3 status or that the child was entitled to citizenship or a passport.
The court proposed costs orders in favour of the mother and child for the Justice Minister appeal and in favour of the Foreign Affairs Minister for the unsuccessful passport appeal. Parties had 21 days from electronic delivery to seek different costs orders; otherwise, the proposed orders would be perfected.