The Supreme Court has allowed the Minister for Justice’s appeal in two linked cases concerning refusals under an immigration Special Scheme. The Court held that the review decisions were adequate in the circumstances and restored the refusals. It did not decide whether the two applicants should receive permission to remain under other routes.
The applicants, Sangeeta Rana and Lehrasib Ali, had each entered Ireland on student permission and later obtained residence permission as the spouse of an EU citizen. The Minister revoked those permissions after finding, respectively, that Rana’s marriage was one of convenience and that Ali had submitted misleading documents about his wife’s presence and work in Ireland. Neither challenged the revocation decision at the time.
They later applied under a time-limited scheme for certain former student-permission holders. The Minister refused both applications on the ground that they did not meet the requirement to have been of “good character and conduct”. At review, each applicant submitted material about their circumstances and character. The review officers upheld the refusals, stating that they had considered the application records and additional review material, and that the original decisions had followed the proper procedures and applied the scheme’s criteria correctly.
The High Court dismissed their judicial review challenges. The Court of Appeal, by a majority, quashed the refusals and directed the Minister to reconsider the applications. It considered that the review decisions did not show sufficient engagement with the applicants’ new material. Costello J dissented.
In a judgment delivered by O’Malley J, the Supreme Court said the Special Scheme’s character requirement had to be assessed in context. A single instance of bad conduct was not automatically enough: its gravity mattered. But the earlier revocations rested on unchallenged findings of serious misconduct, and the Special Scheme decision-makers were entitled to rely on those findings rather than reassess their gravity. The applicants still had to be allowed to put forward evidence of good conduct that could potentially counter the earlier findings.
The Court also held that a decision-maker’s statement that all submitted material was considered was generally sufficient unless there was evidence-based reason to doubt it. A review under the scheme had to consider new material and could lead to a different outcome. Here, the officers said they had considered the new information and confirmed the refusals on the same grounds. The Court concluded that the circumstances made the reasoning clear, allowed the Minister’s appeal and left the refusals in place.
The judgment noted that both applicants had since received permission to remain under a separate scheme for long-term undocumented migrants. The Supreme Court’s ruling concerned only the refusals under the earlier Special Scheme.