The High Court has quashed the refusal to admit a Nigerian woman and her two children to Ireland, finding that immigration officials misapplied the public policy ground and applied a reunification policy too rigidly. It directed the Minister for Justice to reconsider any fresh application, but did not grant the family entry or permanent residence.
In a judgment delivered on 21 July 2011, Mr Justice Hogan said the woman and children had travelled to Dublin in July 2008 after receiving type D family reunification visas from the Irish Embassy in Abuja. The visas had been issued following a misunderstanding between the Department of Justice and the embassy about the scope of the IBC 05 scheme.
The woman and children were refused permission to land at Dublin Airport and returned to Nigeria. The Department said the scheme covered only a single immediate family unit and did not extend to later families. The court noted that, in reliance on the visas, the woman had left her job, sold her car and moved out of her family accommodation. The family had also bought tickets for about €1,635.
The judge held that the statutory public policy ground for refusing entry required a threat arising from the non-national’s personal conduct to fundamental interests of the State. The family’s admission being outside the Government’s reunification policy did not, by itself, meet that test. He found the refusal unlawful on that basis.
The court also found the policy had been applied inflexibly. The family had no effective opportunity to argue for an exception, even though the refusal followed an administrative misunderstanding that was not their making and they had changed their circumstances in reliance on the visas.
The judge said the visas could create an expectation of admission, but did not entitle the family to permanent residence. The State could take account of its administrative error, but could not defeat the family’s expectation simply by citing that error without considering the circumstances.
He therefore quashed the refusal and directed the Minister to reconsider any fresh application in light of the judgment. The Minister must weigh the hardship suffered by the family against the implications an exception could have for fair and consistent application of the scheme. The outcome of any fresh application remains for the Minister to decide.