The High Court has dismissed a married couple’s challenge to the refusal of a long-stay visa for the wife to join her husband in Ireland. The court found that the Minister for Justice was entitled to consider the husband’s immigration history, the recent origin and short duration of the marriage, and whether the couple could live together in Sri Lanka.
The applicants, Sri Lankan nationals identified in the judgment only by initials, sought judicial review of an October 2008 refusal following a ministerial review. They asked the court to quash the refusal and order the Minister to determine the visa application. Leave to bring the judicial review was granted in December 2008; the substantive hearing was held in May 2009.
The husband had been refused refugee status in 2003, but later received temporary permission to remain in Ireland. He returned to Sri Lanka in 2007 for about three months and married the first applicant there. She applied for a long-stay visa in February 2008. The application was refused in April, and an appeal was unsuccessful. A subsequent review considered the couple’s family-life claims under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 41 of the Constitution, but concluded that refusal would not breach those rights.
The applicants argued that the Minister had failed to account for credibility findings made during the husband’s refugee appeal and had wrongly questioned whether their marriage was genuine because they had no established relationship before it. The Minister’s counsel submitted that temporary permission to remain did not give the husband a right to family reunification and that the visa decision was within ministerial discretion.
The court said the applicants’ case rested on a mistaken assumption that the husband’s permission to remain entitled his wife to join him. It found that the refugee appeal tribunal had accepted evidence about his identity and political involvement, but had not found an objectively well-founded fear of persecution. The judge also considered his return to Sri Lanka, where he spent three months, married, and returned to Ireland, relevant to whether there were insurmountable obstacles to the couple living there.
The court found no error in the Minister’s consideration of the relationship. It said the decision was not based on the marriage being arranged, but that the Minister could consider its short duration and the circumstances in which it began. The court was not satisfied that the applicants were entitled to the relief sought, and the application failed. The judgment did not order the Minister to reconsider the visa application.