H427
Judgment Title: F.B. -v- The Minister for Justice & Equality Neutral Citation: [2014] IEHC 427 High Court Record Number: 2013 350 JR Date of Delivery: 05/09/2014 Court: High Court Composition of Court: Judgment by: McDermott J. Status of Judgment: Approved |
Neutral Citation [2014] IEHC 427 THE HIGH COURT JUDICIAL REVIEW [2013 No. 350 J.R.] BETWEEN F.B. APPLICANT AND
THE MINISTER FOR JUSTICE AND EQUALITY RESPONDENT JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice McDermott delivered on the 5th day of September, 2014 1. The applicant in these proceedings seeks an order or certiorari quashing the decision of the respondent refusing to grant family reunification to the applicant’s granddaughters pursuant to s. 18(4) of the Refugee Act 1996. 2. The applicant is resident in the State and originally came to Ireland as a refugee from Nigeria. She was granted a declaration of refugee status in 2008, and subsequently became an Irish citizen in March, 2013. She is in receipt of an old age pension as her sole source of income and welfare assistance in the form of a rent allowance. She is 70 years old. 3. The applicant has been very unwell over the last number of years. She contracted cancer which required major surgery. She remains under medical care. 4. The applicant sought the respondent’s permission to have her granddaughters join her in the state, pursuant to s. 19 of the Refugee Act 1996. Her granddaughters, E.S. and E.L., are 15 and 13 years old and her sole living relatives. Their mother died in 2005 and their father disappeared some time before this. 5. The applicant has, since coming to Ireland, remitted some funds to her granddaughters, sending them to a family friend who agreed to take care of the girls in Nigeria. She also arranged for their uncle on their father’s side to provide financial assistance to allow the girls to continue their education. The amount remitted has been challenged. Receipts produced by the applicant claim that €494.00 was sent to Nigeria. However, the respondent was not satisfied that €350.00 of that amount was verifiable due to lack of information on the remittance forms. Therefore, the total sent was calculated to be €144.00. 6. The applicant lives in a small two bedroom apartment in Waterford which is said to be large enough to accommodate the applicant and her granddaughters. The Methodist Church in Waterford has also agreed to assist her, and has agreed to finance the girls’ education in Ireland. The Law
(b) In paragraph (a), “dependent member of the family”, in relation to a refugee, means any grandparent, parent, brother, sister, child, grandchild, ward or guardian of the refugee who is dependent on the refugee or is suffering from a mental or physical disability to such extent that it is not reasonable for him or her to maintain himself or herself fully.” 8. A first application for reunification was made on the applicant’s behalf by her pastor in February, 2011 and was subsequently refused on 14th December. 9. A further application was made by the applicant’s solicitors on 3rd September, 2012, and was ultimately refused on 4th April, 2013, on the basis that the applicant failed to show that her granddaughters were financially dependent upon her. That refusal forms the basis for this judicial review challenge. The Applicant’s Asylum History 11. The applicant’s last place of residence in Nigeria was in Ofor in Agun State where she lived with her husband and their two children. When asked about the whereabouts of her children, the applicant said that both were living in Northern Nigeria. When asked about her granddaughter, the applicant claimed that she had been living with her but had to be given to her husband’s friend’s wife. This granddaughter was her daughter’s daughter, and came to live with her after the death of the child’s father. By that time the applicant has lost contact with her daughter who wanted the child to live with her because she had since remarried. 12. The Office of the Refugee Appeals Commissioner rejected the initial application and on appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, the above facts were reiterated namely, that the child’s father had died, the mother had remarried and moved to Northern Nigeria and her husband’s friend was now taking care of the child, though she had looked after the child before she left Nigeria. The First Application 14. ORAC replied by letter with a number of queries, and seeking an explanation as to why the applicant claimed to have only one granddaughter in her refugee application. By reply, the applicant explained that when she left Nigeria the elder granddaughter, E.S., was living with her father and the younger one was living with her. She explained that she had only referred to the younger granddaughter in the asylum application because she was living with her. The respondent wrote to the applicant refusing the application on 13th January, 2012. The Second Application 16. It was claimed that the younger granddaughter lived with the applicant until she left Nigeria for Ireland and was left in the care of a family friend in Lagos. The elder granddaughter, was living with her father until his disappearance, but was now also being cared for by the family friend in Lagos. The applicant also said that she only learned of her daughter’s death when in Ireland and did not know about it prior to leaving Nigeria. 17. The applicant was asked to clarify a number of issues arising from the second application; namely the circumstances surrounding the alleged death of her daughter in 2005 and the why the death was only registered in 2011. The status of the children’s father was also queried as it was originally claimed that he was dead. 18. The applicant, through her solicitors, stated that she learned of her daughter’s death in 2006, and that she considered the children’s father dead as he was a “constant pest and trouble rouser”. 19. These responses caused a further request for clarification, as it was pointed out that the applicant told the Tribunal at her appeal in December, 2007 that her daughter was still alive. It was also indicated that the applicant had only ever mentioned having one granddaughter in her interactions with the authorities. Documentary evidence was also sought from the Deputy Registrar of Births and Deaths in Nigeria concerning the registration of her daughter’s death. 20. The applicant’s solicitors replied and claimed that the applicant found it hard to believe that her daughter was dead, and that the discrepancy in mentioning her other granddaughter was due to the applicant having a greater attachment to the younger granddaughter. The request for further information was contended to be outside the remit of the Commissioner and irrelevant and no evidence was furnished. 21. On 4th April, 2013, the applicant was informed by letter that her application for family reunification was refused. Applicant’s visit to Benin Financial Dependency The Challenge 25. The respondent contends that the financial assistance sent by the applicant could only be counted as supplemental and subsidiary and the sum of €144.00 sent to date was too low a contribution to be regarded as assistance upon which the children were dependent. 26. It is clear that the operative part of the decision is focused exclusively on the payments made by the applicant to Nigeria. It states:-
The applicant has failed to establish that E.S. and E.L. are dependent upon her as required by s. 18 of the Refugee Act 1996 (as amended), which outlines the criteria for family reunification.” 27. The account furnished by the applicant of the arrangements which she made for the care of the children before she left Nigeria and applied for refugee status in Ireland was not considered. The children’s uncle (who had his own extensive family commitments), though of limited means, supported the grandchildren while they were living with a family friend to whom their primary care and custody had been entrusted. Following her arrival in Ireland, the applicant suffered serious illness requiring head surgery and chemotherapy, and the nature and consequences of which were fully documented. Notwithstanding that illness, she states that she transferred some funds to Nigeria. She is in very reduced circumstances and alone in Ireland and during the course of her illness was unable to function very well or offer much by way of financial support. 28. The nature of the dependence of the children upon their grandmother has changed since her departure. The uncle who was in a position to offer some support is now not in a financial position to do so. The friend to whom the children were entrusted, in the absence of this support from the uncle, has expressed an unwillingness to accommodate the girls in her home any further. The burden, therefore, if all of this is accepted, falls back upon the grandmother to whom they must now look for support as they did until her departure in 2005. These aspects of the dependency were not considered by the respondent. 29. The emotional bond between grandchildren and grandmother, given her primary care of the children between 1998 and 2005, was not addressed. She made a considerable effort to travel to Benin in October, 2009 to resume physical contact with them. This was only considered in the context of her failure to mention the purpose of her visit to Benin when visiting the Irish Embassy in Abuja to obtain necessary travel documents. 30. The potential consequences for the children of the withdrawal of support and accommodation in these circumstances were not considered. 31. It is noteworthy also that when carrying out the investigation into the circumstances of the children there was no evidence of the amount of financial support offered by the uncle or the value of the support given by the friend to the children, whether in respect of accommodation, food and clothing or educational expenses. There is no doubt that the maintenance of the two teenage girls must involve a significant financial burden in Nigeria. The respondent has not addressed any element of that reality or the value of the contribution made by the applicant other than to acknowledge that it was “welcome”. 32. The applicant contends that the decision should have been considered in a wider context and that the respondent failed to have regard to issues of dependency outside financial dependence. In addition, it is claimed that the respondent failed to have proper regard to the family rights of the applicant and her granddaughters under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. 33. In Hassan Sheikh Ali v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2011] IEHC 115, Cooke J. held that the discretion exercisable under s. 18(4) only arose when the two pre-conditions set out in the subsection were met, namely that the required relationship was established and that the refugee relations were dependent in that they relied for subsistence or means of support upon the refugee. If the two conditions are satisfied, the Minister may then exercise a discretion under s. 18(4). 34. In that case Cooke J. considered the rejection of an application for family reunification of the applicant, a Somalian refugee who sought to bring his sister, two nephews and a niece to Ireland. It was claimed that these relatives were wholly reliant on contributions to pay for food and shelter. The Minister was not satisfied that they were dependent family members. Cooke J. considered the rejection by the Minister of the claim of financial dependence as follows:-
36. This matter was also considered by Clark J. in Ducale & Anor v. the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Attorney General [2013] IEHC 25. In that case the refugee sought reunification with a niece and nephew who were orphaned as infants and had been part of the applicant’s family ever since. It was submitted that the applicant made a number of money transfers to her niece and nephew throughout 2009 to 2011. In addition, it was submitted that there was a close emotional dependence between the applicants and the niece and nephew given the family history. The applicant effectively acted in loco parentis to her niece and nephew following the death of their parents prior to her coming to Ireland and maintained close contact with them following her arrival. Clark J. held that in light of the age of the children in that case, “very light proof would have been required to establish their emotional and financial dependency on the applicants, their guardians”. The learned judge considered that these were highly relevant matters which should have been considered in assessing whether the children were dependent upon the applicant. Clark J. added:-
48. The UNHCR Resettlement Handbook (reissued in 2011) advocates a wide interpretation of the term “dependent” in the context of family reunification of refugees (and) states at pp 178-179: ‘Dependency infers that a relationship or a bond exists between family members, whether this is social, emotional or economic. For operational purposes, with regard to the active involvement of UNHCR offices in individual cases, the concept of dependant should be understood to be someone who depends for his or her existence substantially and directly on any other person, in particular for economic reasons, but also taking social or emotional dependency and cultural norms into consideration. The relationship or bond between the persons in question will normally be one which is strong, continuous and of reasonable duration. Dependency does not require complete dependence, such as that of a parent and minor child, but can be mutual or partial dependence, as in the case of spouses or elderly parents. Dependency may usually be assumed to exist when a person is under the age of 18 years, but continues if the individual (over the age of 18) in question remains within the family unit and retains economic, social and emotional bonds...’”
38. Clark J. returned to this topic in A.A.M. (Somalia) v. the Minister for Justice and Equality [2013] IEHC 68. The applicant in this case was also a Somalian refugee who sought reunification with his mother and four siblings who lived in a Somali refugee camp. He made monthly transfers of €200 which were deemed to be an insufficient amount and not to meet the requirements of s. 18(4) in respect of dependency. The respondent concluded that because the cost of living was cheaper in Somalia than Ireland, it was possible that family members would be better off staying in Somalia. Clark J. considered the absence of guidelines as to how the financial element of “dependency” will be assessed in family reunification cases. She noted:-
40. In A.M.S. v. Minister for Justice and Equality [2014] IEHC 57, MacEochaidh J. held that the “central and often exclusive focus placed on financial dependency in family reunification decisions is misplaced” because the purpose of s. 18(4) is to enable dependent relatives to come to Ireland to (inter alia) enable the refugee to fulfil moral obligations which could not be achieved without the physical presence in the state of the persons in question. The section exists to facilitate family reunification in Ireland where the sponsor proves the existence of a relationship of dependency requiring the physical proximity of the family. 41. The court is not satisfied that the respondent in this case applied the appropriate test in respect of “dependency” to the relationship between the applicant and her granddaughters, either in respect of the issue of financial dependency or the wider dependency based on their relationship with her since infancy. 42. Furthermore, there was no consideration of the rights of the applicant and her granddaughters as a family under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The relationship between the guarantees of family life under Article 41 of the Constitution and Article 8 of the Convention was considered in R.X. v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2010] IEHC 446, in which Hogan J. stated in respect of an application for reunification in respect of grandchildren:-
43. It is clear that in this case the respondent did not consider in any respect the application of Article 8 of the Convention to the circumstances of the applicant and the children. I am satisfied that this was an error of law and that the respondent was obliged to consider the matter in accordance with the principles considered and applied by MacEochaidh J. in A.M.S.. Conclusion |