The High Court has ordered the Minister for Justice to provide sworn answers about security checks relied on to explain a delay of more than two years in deciding a Somali refugee's application to reunite with his wife.
The applicant, identified as S.M., was granted refugee status in May 2023 and applied for family reunification in September that year. He returned a completed questionnaire and supporting documents in February 2024. Further information requested by the Minister in March 2025 was supplied the following month.
No decision followed. The Minister maintained that the application was undergoing final immigration or security checks and that the timing of some checks involving outside agencies was beyond ministerial control.
S.M. began judicial review proceedings after pre-action correspondence failed to secure a decision. The present ruling does not decide his substantive claim that the delay breaches statutory, constitutional or European Convention rights. Instead, it concerns his attempt to obtain more precise information about the Minister's explanation.
Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan held that the case involved a clear information imbalance. The Minister had relied on broad terms such as "security checks", "external agencies" and an "orderly and rational system", while providing limited detail about what had actually happened in S.M.'s case.
The judge said whether the delay is legally justified will be fact-sensitive. Relevant matters could include when checks began, who is conducting them, what remains outstanding, whether they are routine or prompted by something specific to S.M., and how much control the Minister has over the bodies involved.
The court therefore directed answers on affidavit to interrogatories 1 to 12 and 15 to 19. These cover referrals, agencies involved, follow-up dates, average processing times, resources and whether applications have previously been approved without completed checks.
Two questions concerning disclosure of S.M.'s refugee status and confidentiality safeguards were refused as insufficiently relevant to the delay issue.
Final orders and any outstanding matters were left for further hearing.