The High Court refused a judicial review challenge to the requirement that an Iranian national produce a valid passport before receiving an EU family-member residence card, despite his reliance on an Iranian identity document.
The case concerned Dana Hassad Zada, who arrived in Ireland in September 2005 and whose asylum application was refused. He had remained in the State. His wife, Alina Sirkovskaja, an Estonian national, had been employed in Ireland since arriving in January 2005. They married in Waterford on 2 February 2007.
In December 2008, Zada applied for a residence card as the family member of a Union citizen. He said he had never held an Iranian passport and submitted an Iranian identity document called a “Shenashnameh”, described in the judgment as containing his photograph, birth certificate and fingerprint. The application was approved in May 2009, but the approval letter required him to present a valid passport to obtain the card. Immigration officers at Waterford Garda Station refused to issue it when he presented the identity document instead.
The applicants argued that requiring a passport was unlawful and disproportionate, and that identity should be provable by other means. They also argued that Irish regulations allowed a national identity document as an alternative. The Minister’s position was that EU law made a valid passport a mandatory condition for issuing the card to a family member who was not an EU national.
Mr Justice Cooke held that the Directive deliberately distinguishes between EU citizens, who may establish identity with a passport or national identity card, and non-EU family members, for whom it requires a valid passport. He rejected the argument that earlier EU court decisions permitted alternative proof in this situation, distinguishing those cases from an application for a residence card under the current Directive.
The judge also rejected the claim that the Irish regulations had not implemented the passport requirement. He found that their provisions on entry and residence made possession of a valid passport a condition throughout the process. On that basis, he considered the respondents’ insistence on a passport was not invalid as disproportionate.
The judgment noted that the applicant claimed he feared approaching the Iranian Embassy because his family in Iran could face retaliation, and said he could not obtain a passport because he had avoided compulsory military service. The court said those claims were not substantiated by evidence before it. It also observed that the case was not one of a stateless person who could not possibly obtain a passport.
The court refused the judicial review application. It did not order the respondents to issue the residence card.