The High Court has quashed decisions refusing three family members’ visa appeals, finding that the Minister for Justice relied on information from undisclosed investigations and failed to give the applicants an opportunity to respond.
In a judgment delivered on 14 April 2022, Mr Justice Mark Heslin ruled that the Minister’s decisions of 23 July 2019 refusing the appeals of a father’s adult daughter, adult son and minor grandson were unlawful. The judicial review challenged those appeal decisions, rather than the original visa refusals.
The two adult applicants, who lived in Pakistan, claimed they depended on their father, a UK citizen living and working in Ireland. They relied on financial support and medical evidence. The Minister’s appeal decisions cited irregular money transfers, a lack of evidence about their living costs and concerns about documents concerning their medical conditions.
The court found that the Minister had investigated the medical documents, including by consulting a healthcare provider’s website and making further enquiries. She relied on the results to question the documents’ reliability and give them little evidentiary weight, but had not told the applicants about those investigations or the resulting concerns before deciding their appeals. The judge held that this breached fair procedures. He did not make findings on the documents’ veracity.
The decisions also referred to the applicants’ past UK visa refusals and said the Minister had considered the public policy imperative of maintaining the integrity and security of the Common Travel Area and the security of the State. The court found those considerations formed part of the reasoning. It ruled that the Minister erred by relying on general public policy and security concerns in this way, where the required grounds under the EU rules were not invoked or complied with.
The grandson, aged under 21, was treated by the Minister as a qualifying family member of his UK-citizen grandfather. His appeal was refused in part because his mother’s visa appeal had been refused and because of court orders in Pakistan concerning travel with the child. The High Court held that the Minister could not refuse his application on the ground that a different person’s visa appeal had failed. It also found that the applicant had not been put on notice that his appeal was being linked to his mother’s or that the Minister considered issuing him a visa would breach a foreign court order.
The court answered the three agreed questions against the Minister: public policy and security had materially influenced the decisions; the grandson’s visa could not be refused because his mother’s appeal was refused; and the adult applicants’ dependency had not been lawfully assessed.
The order was to quash all three appeal refusal decisions dated 23 July 2019. The court did not grant visas or determine the applicants’ entitlement following a fresh decision. It directed the parties to correspond about the form of order and costs, expressing a preliminary view that costs should follow the event.