The High Court has refused a Somali national’s application to quash the Minister for Justice and Equality’s 2013 refusal of his application for Irish naturalisation. The judicial review concerned the Minister’s assessment that the applicant did not meet the good character requirement because of the “serious and repetitive nature” of offences recorded against him.
The applicant had made six naturalisation applications. The decision challenged in court followed an application submitted in September 2012. In a letter dated 7 October 2013, the Minister said the application was refused after considering offences listed in an attached report. The report noted that fines had been paid, that the applicant had worked on a casual basis while receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance, and that he had an Irish-born child who was an Irish citizen.
The applicant argued that the offences had been wrongly characterised as serious and that the Minister had failed to account for the time without further convictions or Garda attention. He also said two 2008 public order matters had been dealt with under the Probation of Offenders Act. The Minister’s position was that summary offences could still be relevant to good character and that the decision was within her discretion.
The court reviewed the table of offences supplied to the Minister. It included motoring offences from 2003 and 2005, including fines and a driving disqualification, as well as public order and intoxication matters in 2002 and 2008 where section 1(1) of the Probation of Offenders Act was applied. It also listed an unauthorised carriage offence from 2003, for which the record showed a suspended sentence, a three-month sentence, a fine and compensation.
The judgment held that the Minister could consider offences regardless of their classification and could take account of their repetitive nature, the number of convictions, and the time since the last conviction or offence. The court rejected the argument that an offence had to be indictable before the Minister could call it serious for the naturalisation assessment. It also distinguished this case from one in which relevant or exculpatory material had not been put before the decision-maker, finding that relevant information was before the Minister here.
The court acknowledged the applicant’s circumstances, including his arrival in Ireland with state permission and assistance from the UNHCR, and his long-standing mistaken belief that he had refugee status. But it emphasised that the case concerned judicial review of a discretionary naturalisation decision. It found nothing arbitrary, capricious, partial or manifestly unfair in the Minister’s exercise of discretion and refused the relief sought. The ruling did not grant naturalisation or determine any later application.