The High Court quashed decisions refusing naturalisation applications by two women who had worked as domestic staff at foreign embassies in Ireland, ruling that their residence in the State could count toward the statutory residence requirement.
In a judgment delivered on 24 June 2016, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys found that the Minister for Justice and Equality had wrongly treated the women’s time in Ireland as diplomatic staff as not constituting residence under section 15 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956. He ordered the Minister to reconsider both applications in line with the judgment. The court did not grant naturalisation or decide that either applicant was entitled to it.
Florita Rodis, a Philippine citizen, worked as a cook and cleaner at the Argentinian mission’s ambassadorial residence on Simmonscourt Road and at the embassy on Ailesbury Road. Jenalyn Tolentino worked as domestic staff at the Finnish Embassy. Both had permission to remain in Ireland connected with their employment, renewed over time. They applied for naturalisation in September 2014, and the Minister refused the applications in July 2015.
The applicants challenged those refusals in judicial review proceedings. The Minister’s decisions treated their presence under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations as outside the meaning of residence. The judge said the refusals were threshold decisions based on failure to meet the residence condition, rather than exercises of the Minister’s discretion to grant or refuse naturalisation after the conditions were met.
The court held that the women were resident in Ireland in the ordinary meaning of the word. Section 16A of the 1956 Act expressly excludes certain categories of presence from residence, including unlawful presence, some study-related permission and time awaiting a refugee-status decision. The applicants did not fall within those categories. The judge also noted that diplomatic mission staff did not require immigration permission under Irish law and that the State had not adopted the optional protocol to the Vienna Convention concerning acquisition of nationality.
The judgment said the women’s distinctive status as mission staff did not, by itself, prevent their residence from counting. Their presence had been settled and usual, and they took part in the normal life of the community. The court rejected other grounds advanced by the applicants, including claims of discrimination based on reports that other embassy staff had been naturalised, and an argument that the Minister had unlawfully introduced a new condition.
The court quashed the 2013 interim guidance letters and the 2015 refusal decisions in both cases. It directed the Minister to reconsider each application according to the law set out in the judgment. It declined to make a separate declaration about the Vienna Convention, finding that one would add nothing to its conclusions.