The High Court has refused a Pakistani national’s challenge to the refusal of a residence card based on his marriage to a UK citizen, finding that her pregnancy alone did not preserve her worker status after the applicable six-month period expired.
In a judgment delivered on 11 March 2016, Ms Justice Faherty denied the relief sought in judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Justice and Law Reform. The court considered the Minister’s 3 December 2014 decision affirming an earlier refusal of the card.
The applicants married in an Islamic ceremony in Dublin on 4 September 2013 and in a civil ceremony on 16 January 2014. The UK citizen had worked for Supermacs Ltd from 11 September 2013 until she became involuntarily unemployed on 16 February 2014. The Pakistani applicant sought a residence card as the family member of an EU citizen working in Ireland.
The Minister refused the original application after learning from the former employer that the UK citizen’s employment had ended. On review, the applicants submitted evidence that she was registered as a jobseeker and receiving jobseeker’s allowance. The Minister nevertheless affirmed the refusal, citing the absence of a letter from the former employer explaining how the employment ended and finding that she had not resumed work within six months.
The applicants argued that EU law’s provision for worker status to be retained for “no less than six months” allowed a longer period. They also argued that the Minister should have examined the effect of the UK citizen’s pregnancy, which had been disclosed in a November 2014 letter. The Minister’s position was that the applicants had not claimed that pregnancy prevented her from working or seeking work, and had not supplied requested employment evidence.
Justice Faherty rejected the challenge to the six-month limit in the Irish regulations. She held that EU law set six months as a minimum and did not require Ireland to allow a longer period in these circumstances. She also found that the European Court of Justice ruling in Saint Prix concerned a worker who had to give up work or seeking work because of the physical constraints of late pregnancy and childbirth, and who returned to work or found another job within a reasonable period. The applicants had not made that case to the Minister; the material submitted continued to describe the UK citizen as a jobseeker.
The judge said the requested proof about the end of employment related to a fundamental issue under the regulations. Although the Minister already knew the reason for the employment’s cessation through contact with the employer, that point did not invalidate the decision in light of the court’s other findings. The court denied the relief sought. The judgment did not itself make a removal order.