The High Court has quashed a decision refusing a Vietnamese woman a residence card as the dependent adult daughter of a UK citizen who moved to Ireland. It ordered the Minister for Justice to conduct a fresh review through another deciding officer.
Mr Justice Barr ruled that the Minister had largely relied on the absence of evidence that the woman depended on her father after she arrived in Ireland in October 2019. The relevant period was immediately before she joined him in Ireland, the judge said, and the review decision was therefore made using the wrong test.
The woman, born in 1998, was 21 when she applied for a residence card in December 2019. Her father had moved from Vietnam to the UK in 2009 and then to Ireland in 2016. She and her mother joined him in Ireland in 2019. For the application to succeed, the woman had to establish that she was dependent on him in the relevant period before joining him.
The Minister’s December 2019 letter had asked for evidence of payments and dependency since the woman’s arrival in Ireland, as well as evidence that she lived at the same address as her father. A solicitor’s response, which included residence documents and records of earlier money transfers, was mistakenly filed under the mother’s application. The Minister’s initial refusal in February 2020 was made without those documents.
The documents were resubmitted with the request for a review. In July 2022, the Minister acknowledged records of money transfers from 2008 to 2013, but said there was no evidence of financial support after 2013 or of support since the woman arrived in Ireland. The review decision concluded that dependency had not been established.
The judge said the initial refusal had focused on the wrong period and shaped what the woman and her advisers addressed in the review. They had not been put on notice that the Minister was concerned about evidence of dependency between 2013 and 2019. On fairness grounds, she should have had the opportunity to address that issue.
The court rejected a separate argument that the review decision was irrational because it sought evidence from a period when the woman had been a minor under the EU rules. The judge said the decision-maker could not be faulted for failing to consider circumstances that did not arise in this case.
The court granted an extension of time to bring the judicial review, finding the delay marginal and sufficiently explained. It quashed the July 2022 decision and remitted the application for a fresh review by another deciding officer. The parties were to be heard on the final order and costs; the judgment did not decide whether the woman was entitled to a residence card.