The High Court awarded two applicants 50% of their costs in a judicial review over a family member residence card, after the card was issued before the hearing and the substantive dispute became moot.
Mr Justice Cooke said the applicants could recover half the costs of the proceeding, including reserved costs, with the amount to be taxed if the parties could not agree. The court did not order the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to issue the card: it had already been issued to the second applicant on 17 February 2010.
The case concerned a residence card application made in January 2009 by the second applicant, who sought to reside in Ireland as the spouse of the first applicant, a Latvian citizen. The Minister refused it in June 2009 after being told that the first applicant was no longer employed by the employer named in the application. The court found that refusal justified on the information then before the Minister. The applicants had not informed the Minister of the employment change, and the court said he had no obligation to investigate whether the first applicant qualified on another basis.
The applicants later told the Minister that the first applicant had been made redundant in February 2009 and had registered as a jobseeker. Their solicitors sought a review and supplied further information in August. The court treated the June correspondence as a new application based on unemployment, rather than a continuation of the original application. It found the card was issued within six months of the August information and that the roughly ten-week period before proceedings began was not obviously excessive. The court did not find culpable delay in deciding the review.
However, the June refusal letter said the second applicant’s temporary Stamp 4 permission would expire on 28 July 2009 and would not be renewed. The court said that where a negative decision was under review, the Minister was obliged to continue the effect of the acknowledgement of the application until the review was decided. It said it was not unreasonable to expect a temporary Stamp 4 permission to be extended, and found the applicants had reason to start proceedings to safeguard the second applicant’s lawful presence, at least temporarily.
Balancing that concern against the absence of culpable delay, the court concluded that the proceedings were justified in part and awarded the applicants half their costs.