The High Court has ruled that the applicants must pay the respondents’ costs after losing a judicial review concerning Jobseeker’s Allowance and a residence requirement for social welfare payments.
The costs judgment, delivered by Ms Justice O’Regan on 1 February 2021, followed an earlier judgment on 2 October 2020. In that earlier decision, the court rejected all four grounds advanced by the applicants. The February ruling dealt only with the appropriate costs order.
The applicants had argued that Jobseeker’s Allowance was a financial benefit intended to facilitate access to employment. The second named applicant also claimed to have worked for a month from about 4 March 2018 and therefore to qualify for the payment. The court had found that an appeals officer’s decision that the applicant was not a worker was not irrational in light of the circumstances and evidence before the officer.
The applicants also challenged the constitutionality of section 256(5) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005, which required a qualifying applicant to establish a right of residence in the State to receive the payment. They further argued that the provision was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003. Both arguments had been rejected in the earlier judgment.
For the costs hearing, the respondents sought costs and the applicants asked for no order. The applicants submitted that any allowance would support the family’s welfare and that the case had implications for other EU citizen children. They described it as a test case and relied on decisions in which courts had departed from the usual costs rule, including where unsuccessful cases raised issues of public importance or involved vulnerable people.
Justice O’Regan said no evidence had been provided at the hearing to show that this case qualified as a test case under the authorities cited. She found that the earlier judgment had applied existing law, that no novel issue had been raised, and that the claim was specific to the applicants. The constitutional issues, she said, did not transcend the facts of the case or have general importance.
The court therefore declined to depart from the general rule that costs follow the event. The judgment determined the costs issue; it did not revisit the earlier rejection of the applicants’ substantive grounds.