The High Court dismissed a Syrian national’s action seeking a declaration that the Minister for Justice should consider a naturalisation application he had sent in December 2002. The court found that he had adequate time to complete and lodge the application before new rules took effect on 30 November 2002, and that the Minister had not acted negligently or breached a statutory duty.
The applicant came to Ireland as a student in 1995. He said he obtained a Form 5 naturalisation application in October 2002 after visiting the Department’s offices at St Stephen’s Green, Dublin. According to his evidence, an unidentified staff member advised him to send it by registered post and said the process could take 15 months.
He completed the form and obtained most of the required signatures by 13 October, but did not arrange the required statutory declaration until an appointment with a solicitor on 11 December. He sent the application on 16 December; it was apparently received on 2 or 3 January 2003. The Department replied that Form 5 had ceased to be the official form on 30 November and asked him to complete Form 8.
The applicant later made a new application. In January 2005, he was told he did not meet the statutory criteria because he lacked five years of reckonable residence in the State. He argued that the Department’s February 2002 guidance failed to refer to the 2001 Act and that the change to the application form had not been publicised adequately or brought to his attention.
The judge found the Department’s account of the alleged October conversation more credible, citing the volume of applications and the lack of specific identifying details. The judge also found that the applicant had done nothing to secure the statutory declaration between 13 October and the rules’ commencement, and that his delay was the real and proximate cause of the loss of any rights he may have had based on reckonable residence. The omission of the 2001 Act from the guidance was described as regrettable but did not amount to negligence.
The court held there was no negligence, breach of statutory duty or infringement of constitutional fairness. It said it could not override the statutory provisions to grant the first two declarations sought, and found no causation for damages where naturalisation remained within the Minister’s discretion. The applicant failed in the action. The judgment did not grant naturalisation or direct the Minister to consider the December 2002 application.