The Court of Appeal has quashed a decision refusing a Nigerian man’s application for an EU residence card after finding that the Minister for Justice failed to consider whether his UK citizen spouse had sufficient resources to live in Ireland.
In a judgment delivered on 17 February 2025, Ms Justice Hyland said the Minister had not assessed the couple’s income and living expenses or the nature of their health insurance against the requirements of the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015.
The man’s application, made in October 2018, initially relied on his spouse’s claimed employment in Ireland. After the first refusal in August 2019, the couple sought a review on different grounds: that she was residing with sufficient resources and was involuntarily unemployed. The Minister’s final decision in December 2022 refused the residence card, finding that the applicants had not established that she was exercising Treaty rights. It also maintained an abuse-of-rights finding concerning documents submitted to support her earlier employment claim.
The appeal raised challenges to both the abuse-of-rights finding and the assessment of the spouse’s Treaty rights. The Court of Appeal did not decide the first issue or the challenge concerning involuntary unemployment. It allowed the appeal on the separate sufficient-resources ground.
The court said that merely listing possible grounds for residence, including “sufficient resources”, did not amount to considering the couple’s application on that basis. A substantive assessment required the Minister to identify the application’s core elements, evaluate them against the regulation’s criteria, and decide whether those criteria were met. The court found no such examination had been carried out.
The Court of Appeal set aside the High Court order and made an order of certiorari quashing the Minister’s 5 December 2022 decision. It directed the parties to seek agreement on whether the order should include a remittal to the Minister; if they could not agree, they were to make submissions on remittal. The applicants were presumptively entitled to appeal costs, subject to a possible submission from the Minister within 14 days of electronic delivery of the judgment.