The High Court has ruled that Turkish worker Anan Ozek is entitled to immigration documentation recognising employment and residence rights he acquired in Ireland from January 2020, rather than from the date his Stamp 1 permission was eventually issued a year later.
Mr Ozek entered Ireland in November 2018 on a student permission and began working at a Dublin restaurant on 7 January 2019. After completing one year of legal employment, he applied in January 2020 for permission based on rights arising under the EU-Turkey Association arrangements.
The Department did not decide that application until 5 January 2021. It granted Stamp 1 conditions from the date of the decision. Mr Ozek later obtained Stamp 4 permission in March 2022.
In 2024, while preparing to apply for Irish citizenship by naturalisation, Mr Ozek asked the Minister to confirm that his Stamp 1 status should be recognised from 7 January 2020. The Department refused, stating that permissions under the Turkish Association Agreement begin from the date of the decision letter.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons rejected that approach. He held that the employment rights acquired by qualifying Turkish workers arise directly under EU law and that any Irish immigration document issued to record those rights must accurately reflect when they accrued.
The judge said the State could not rely on the fact that such documents are administrative in nature to justify recording a later date. Where Ireland requires a Turkish worker to obtain and register an immigration permission, the documentation must properly evidence the underlying rights.
The court also rejected the Minister’s argument that the judicial review was brought too late. It found that the September 2024 refusal was a new decision rather than merely a repetition of the 2021 permission.
The ruling matters because residence under a student permission is generally excluded when calculating reckonable residence for naturalisation. The judge proposed declaring that Mr Ozek had acquired migrant-worker status from 7 January 2020 and quashing the September 2024 refusal. Final orders and costs were left for a later hearing.