High Court: Party to alleged ‘marriage of convenience’ succeeds in quashing decision to revoke residence permission

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] IEHC 116
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Ms Justice Sara Phelan

Delivering judgment for the High Court, Ms Justice Sara Phelan explained that the respondent’s decision “is clear as to its destination, but not the route taken. Thus, the court does not agree that either the rationale or reasons were sufficiently clear to justify the decision-maker’s conclusions.”

Background

On 15 March 2014, the applicant, a Pakistani national, arrived in Ireland without a visa from the UK. The applicant met XY, a Latvian national, while in the UK and in August 2014, XY moved to Ireland to be with the applicant. XY and the applicant married in March 2015.

In May 2015, the applicant applied for a residence card under the European Communities (Free Movement of Persons) Regulations 2015 SI No 548/2015 (the Regulations) on the basis of his marriage to XY. The applicant was granted a residence card for a period of 5 years.

In 2016 – 2017, the marriage broke down and the applicant and XY decided to separate, becoming divorced in Latvia on 9 August 2019.

In October 2019, the applicant applied to retain his residence card, which application was refused by the deciding officer In August 2021 on the basis that the applicant’s marriage to XY was one of convenience and that the applicant had provided false and misleading supporting documentation.

The deciding officer also refused the applicant’s application to remain in the State, revoked his extant permission to remain in the State and deemed all previous permissions void ab initio.

On review in September 2023, the deciding officer upheld the adverse findings and the decision to refuse the applicant’s retention application, but revoked the applicant’s extant permission only to the date of the first instance decision.

Having been granted leave to apply for judicial review in February 2024, the applicant sought an order of certiorari in respect of the September 2023 decision, framing two main questions for the court:

• Whether the respondent’s analysis of the applicant’s case was in accordance with legal principle and/or fair procedures and/or was sufficiently rigorous and/or grounded on a sufficiently solid factual basis?
• Whether the respondent was entitled to automatically revoke the applicant’s permission and/or whether the respondent was obliged to consider the applicant’s rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)?

The High Court

As to the first question, Ms Justice Phelan considered that the decision favoured evidence unsighted by the applicant and did not engage with the evidence supplied by the applicant in such a way as to satisfy the court both that the decision was made on a sufficiently solid factual basis and that the reasons given were justified on a rational basis which took into account the personal circumstances of the applicant.

In particular, the judge found that the respondent preferred evidence which was adverse to the applicant’s interests and inferred therefrom that the applicant was not being truthful, without adequately explaining why such evidence was preferred.

Having regard to the dicta of former Chief Justice Frank Clarke in Connelly v. An Bord Pleanála [2021] 2 IR 752, the High Court explained that it was not sufficient that the decision “simply indicated the factors taken into account and then asserted, that as a result of those factors, the decision went against the applicant. The decision should have enlightened the applicant as to why it went the way it did.”

Finding also that there was no evidence that the respondent engaged with or considered the applicant’s responses prior to preferring information obtained from third party sources, Ms Justice Phelan determined that “In all instances of reliance on information from third party sources, the information relied upon by the respondent is not disclosed to the applicant in a manner which allows the applicant to address it and it is not explained why this information is more reliable than the applicant’s information.”

As to the second question, Ms Justice Phelan likened the facts of the case before her to those in AKS v. Minister for Justice & Ors [2023] IEHC 1, finding no indication that the decision-maker in the case before her was aware that they could exercise a discretion to revoke the applicant’s residence permission nor that that discretion had in fact been exercised.

The court explained that instead, the decision-maker had made an “automatic jump” from being satisfied that the applicant submitted false or misleading documentation and that there was an abuse of rights for the purposes of regulation 27 of the Regulations, to the decision to revoke his permission.

Ms Justice Phelan also had regard to the fact that there was no evidence that the respondent considered the potential impact of the impugned decision on the applicant at all, particularly in circumstances where inter alia the appellant had been residing in the State for nearly 10 years as at the date of the decision, had been employed and paying taxes for much of that period, where there was no suggestion that the applicant was not otherwise a person of good conduct.

Finding it “clear that by the respondent’s actions in deeming the marriage to be one of convenience, the applicant’s fundamental rights were then engaged”, the court highlighted that there was neither evidence that a proportionate decision was made nor was there evidence that any proportionality assessment had been carried out by the respondent.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court was satisfied that sufficient frailties had been identified to warrant an order of certiorari quashing the decision of September 2023.

F.N. v. Minister for Justice [2025] IEHC 116