Ireland: Court of Appeal Overturns Ruling on Residence Requirement for Citizenship

Date: 
Thursday, November 14, 2019

On 14 November 2019, the Court of Appeal overturned a ruling from the High Court that had interpreted the requirement of one year continuous residence prior to lodging a citizenship application to mean that an applicant must be physically present in the state for the entirety of the preceding year. 

The case concerned an Australian national who applied for naturalisation in August 2017. He submitted that he was absent from the state for approximately 90-100 days in the year prior to the application. In October 2018, the Minister for Justice refused the application on the grounds that he did not meet the residence requirement for the preceding year. In the refusal, the Minister described how the one year of continuous residence requirement of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956 has long been interpreted to mean that the applicant can spend a period of up to six weeks outside of the state.

In July 2019, the High Court judge refused the appeal and held that the 1956 Act did not grant the Minister for Justice discretion in granting six weeks of absence. Instead, it was held that the “continuous” residence requirement in the 1956 Act requires uninterrupted presence in Ireland.  

The Court of Appeal held that the High Court judge had erred in law by interpreting the term “continuous residence” literally and in such a way that it amounted to an “interpretive absurdity” (para 47-49). Indeed, the previous approach of the Minister was reasonable and allowed for flexibility and certainty. However, it upheld the Minister’s finding that the applicant was ineligible for citizenship due to the length of absences from the state, noting that most trips were not for work. An estimated 16,000 applications for naturalization were put on hold by the Department of Justice between July 2019 and this Court of Appeal judgment.

The EWLU team would like to thank Emily Cunniffe for informing ECRE about this judgment and assisting us with the summary.


This item was reproduced with the permission of ECRE from the ELENA Weekly Legal Update. The purpose of these updates is to inform asylum lawyers and legal organizations supporting asylum seekers and refugees of recent developments in the field of asylum law. Please note that the information provided is taken from publicly available information on the internet. Every reasonable effort is made to make the content accurate and up to date at the time each item is pusexblished but no responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by ECRE.

 

 

Keywords: 
Residence document