The High Court quashed the refusal of a family reunification application by a man identified as X, finding that the Minister had wrongly treated biological parentage as a requirement under the International Protection Act 2015. The court remitted the application for fresh consideration; it did not itself grant family reunification.
X was granted subsidiary protection in June 2014 and later sought reunification with a 14-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. In February 2016, the Minister asked him to take a DNA test to establish parentage. X first agreed, then declined. He said he feared the children might not be biologically his and did not want to face that possibility.
After an earlier application was unsuccessful, X made a fresh application under section 56 of the 2015 Act on 20 March 2017. The Minister refused it by letter dated 29 May 2018. X sought an order of certiorari quashing that decision.
The Minister raised whether X had standing to challenge the refusal, given that his application relied on his status as the children’s sole legal guardian and he had not taken a DNA test. The court held that “child” in section 56(9) can include a non-biological child. It said the Act does not confine the father-child relationship to biological parentage. The key question on reconsideration is whether each child is an unmarried minor who is X’s child in the statutory sense.
The court also rejected reliance on the former Qualification Directive for reunification rights in this case. The children were residing in Country X, rather than the same member state as the application for international protection, so the application fell to be decided under domestic law.
On DNA testing, the judge said that inviting someone to take a test is not the same as requiring one, and that refusing to provide a sample does not necessarily mean a sponsor has failed to cooperate fully. The Minister’s decision had proceeded on the legally mistaken basis that X had to be the children’s natural parent. The court therefore quashed the refusal and returned the application to the Minister for a new decision.