The High Court has quashed the Minister for Justice and Equality’s refusals to allow two children to enter and reside in Ireland as dependants of a refugee applicant, finding errors in the decisions made under the Refugee Act 1996.
In a judgment delivered on 13 December 2018, Mr Justice David Keane granted certiorari quashing the decisions concerning E.L. and E.S. The proceedings were a judicial review of the Minister’s 5 September 2017 decisions. The court did not itself grant either child permission to enter or reside in the State; it set aside the refusals.
The Minister accepted for the purpose of the decision that E.L. was the applicant’s granddaughter, but refused her application on the ground that reunification was not in her best interests. Mr Justice Keane found no evidence of a proper inquiry into those interests. He said the decision relied on the applicant’s solicitor’s suggestion that E.L. could provide care and companionship to her elderly grandmother, without explaining why that made reunification contrary to the child’s interests. He also found the reasons vague and inadequate and the decision unreasonable.
The Minister refused E.S.’s application because the applicant had not established that she was her granddaughter. The judgment records that a DNA report said there was “no relationship determined” between E.S. and the applicant, without explaining the phrase or providing statistical analysis. A separate test showed weak support for E.L. and E.S. being half-siblings, or more distantly related.
The judge held that the available DNA evidence did not justify the summary refusal of E.S.’s application. He also rejected the Minister’s argument that the test results and inconsistencies in the applicant’s accounts showed a lack of candour that should prevent relief. The judgment emphasized that the statutory definition of a dependent family member includes a ward, and said the Minister had erred by considering the applications only through the asserted biological relationships.
The court further found no evidence that the Minister had considered the applicant’s family rights in E.L.’s case or the concrete nature of the claimed family ties under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The judgment concerns the lawfulness of the 2017 decisions; it does not determine that either child must be admitted to Ireland.