The High Court has quashed the Minister for Justice’s decision to refuse a Pakistani man’s application to retain his residence card, finding that the review process did not give adequate reasons or fairly address evidence and submissions he had provided.
In a judgment delivered on 27 February 2025, Ms Justice Sara Phelan said the decision-maker had not shown that the refusal rested on a sufficiently solid factual basis. The court granted an order of certiorari on those grounds. It did not decide the merits of the man’s case or find that his marriage was genuine.
The man had received a five-year residence card in November 2015 through his marriage to an EU citizen, identified in the judgment as XY. After the couple divorced in Latvia in 2019, he applied to retain the card. In August 2021, the Minister refused the application, found the marriage was one of convenience and alleged that he had knowingly submitted misleading documents. A review decision in September 2023 upheld those findings and revoked his permission from the date of the first decision, while leaving his original five-year permission intact.
The man challenged the review decision by judicial review. The judgment records that the Minister relied on disputed address records, information about when XY received a personal public service number, information from Latvian authorities about XY’s children, and a Garda account of a conversation with the owner of a Drogheda guesthouse. The man disputed aspects of that material and sought documents and details that would allow him to respond.
The judge found the review decision opaque: it recited information and submissions but did not make clear which facts supported its conclusions or why the Minister preferred adverse third-party information. In particular, the decision did not explain the conflicting PPS-number dates or address the official letter supplied by the man. The court also found that the man had not been given the underlying material about the Garda conversation, despite requests for it, and could not properly assess or challenge the account.
The review decision also relied on matters—including a short stay at the guesthouse, an earlier address and XY’s Latvian residence registration—that had not formed part of the first-instance decision. The court held that, in the circumstances, the man should have been told these matters were being reconsidered at review stage and given a specific opportunity to address them.
The court’s ruling quashes the September 2023 review decision. The October 2025 postscript clarifies that the operative order rests on the court’s findings up to paragraph 117. The judge’s later discussion of proportionality and fundamental rights was treated as obiter, while a related issue remained before the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the EU. The court did not order the Minister to grant the residence card. The parties were to address the precise costs order separately.