By Maeve Rowan
The High Court has quashed visa refusal decisions affecting the parents and sister of a Sudanese woman living in Ireland with her Dutch-national husband.
Louai Hamed, who has lived in Ireland since 2012, challenged the Minister for Justice's March 2024 decisions refusing visas to his wife's father, mother and sister. The applications were made under EU free-movement rules on the basis of their family relationship and claimed financial dependency on Hamed and his wife, Alia.
Hamed and Alia have a child born in Dublin in 2017. Both work in Ireland. The court was told that Alia's relatives had lived in Saudi Arabia, where her father, referred to as Mr Ali, worked as a gardener and driver earning about €603 a month.
The Minister questioned whether the required family relationships had been established, relying partly on differences in the spelling of names across translated documents.
Mr Justice Barr held that an appeal decision-maker could identify problems in newly submitted documents. However, where a document had already been considered at first instance, fresh discrepancies could not fairly be relied upon on appeal without giving the applicants an opportunity to respond.
The judge also found that the Minister had not adequately explained why the claimed marriage between Hamed and Alia was rejected despite other supporting evidence, including Alia's 2017 residence card and their child's Irish birth certificate.
A separate issue concerned financial dependency. Mr Ali said his employment in Saudi Arabia ended in August 2023 because of his age, resulting in the loss of his right to reside there and access to his bank account.
The Minister had sought confirmation from his former employer but received no reply before refusing the appeals on March 15, 2024. Five days later, the former employer confirmed the dismissal.
Barr J described that confirmation as a "game changing document" which warranted reopening the appeal because it materially altered the family's claimed financial circumstances.
The court therefore ordered that all three March 2024 appeal decisions be quashed. It did not grant the visas, leaving the applications to be reconsidered.