The High Court refused two applicants leave to seek judicial review of a decision refusing a visa for the second applicant to join the first applicant in Ireland. The ruling concerned whether they could proceed with a challenge, not a full judicial review of the visa decision.
The first applicant said he was a Somali national who had lived in Ireland for many years and had permission to remain until December 2018. He said the second applicant was his wife and second cousin, and that she was an undocumented refugee from Somalia living in Ethiopia. The visa application and appeal were considered under the Minister’s January 2014 Non-EEA Family Reunification policy.
The visa decision noted eight money transfers from the first applicant to the second, made between February 2015 and April 2016, and five mobile top-up vouchers submitted as evidence of communication. It also considered the applicants’ submissions about the second applicant’s circumstances, including the death of her child and her reported health problems. The decision maker questioned the quality and detail of the medical documents and concluded that the first applicant did not meet the policy’s financial criteria. The decision also considered family-life rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 41 of the Constitution, and concluded that refusing the visa would not breach those rights.
The applicants advanced seven grounds, including arguments that the decision maker had failed to consider their family rights and individual circumstances, applied financial thresholds rigidly, overlooked relevant matters, and should have found exceptional circumstances. At this leave stage, they had to show that their proposed grounds were arguable.
Justice Mac Eochaidh rejected each ground as unarguable. He said the decision maker had examined the policy and the applicants’ constitutional and Convention rights in detail. Several grounds rested on findings the visa decision had not made, including that the applicants could reasonably be expected to establish family life in Ethiopia or Somalia, or that their family life was less important because of limited contact before marriage. The court also found that the decision maker had considered the financial submissions, money transfers, the child’s death and the second applicant’s situation in Ethiopia.
The judge said disagreement with the result was not enough to obtain leave, adding that the High Court was not a visa appeal court. Leave to seek judicial review was refused.