High Court dismisses judicial review of family reunification refusal due to lack of reliable marriage evidence.

Record no: 2025/133 JR [2026] IEHC 315 THE HIGH COURT JUDICIAL REVIEW Between:

N.K.S.

Applicant -and-

THE MINISTER FOR JUSTICE Respondent

Judgment of Mr Justice Cian Ferriter delivered 21 May 2026

Introduction

1. In these judicial review proceedings, the applicant seeks to quash a decision of the respondent ("the Minister") of 31 October 2024, refusing the applicant's application for family reunification under s. 56 of the International Protection Act 2015 ("s. 56") in respect of a woman whom the applicant says is his wife ("Ms X").

2. While the decision sought to be challenged is a review of an initial decision taken by the Minister on 12 September 2023 (in which the s.56 application was refused), both parties accept that the initial decision and the review decision should be read together for the purposes of these judicial review proceedings.

Material facts

Background

3. The applicant is a national of Somalia. He left Somalia in 2015 and travelled to Sweden, where he claimed international protection. His application was refused and he travelled to Ireland. His international protection application was based on the fact that he came from a minority clan and his father and brothers were killed in a dispute with majority clan members. The applicant arrived in Ireland in 2018 and applied for international protection here.

4. It appears that he was the subject of an application for transfer back to Sweden pursuant to the Dublin III Regulation but that the decision to transfer him ultimately timed out in March 2021 when he was informed that he would not be transferred due to the expiry of the relevant time limit for transfer. The applicant was then granted refugee status in this State by Ministerial direction on 23 November 2021.

5. After being granted refugee status, the applicant applied to the Minister for family reunification with his wife, Ms. X, pursuant to s.56, by way of letter from his solicitors dated

4 February 2022. This letter stated that he married Ms X by proxy marriage ceremony in 2016 prior to his arrival in Ireland in 2018, and noted that this was lawful under Somali law and capable of recognition under Irish law in accordance with private international law principles.

6. The applicant submitted a completed family reunification questionnaire in which he stated that he had been the subject of a marriage in Somalia on 7 November 2016 in Galkaio Courthouse Somalia. The name of the Sheikh or imam who conducted the ceremony was provided. It was stated that the applicant was required to register the marriage in Shibas District Court, Mogadishu, Somalia. The witnesses to the relationship were set out.

7. This information aligned with the information contained in a marriage certificate from Shibis District Court (“the Shibis marriage certificate”) subsequently submitted on his behalf on 31 March 2022, along with an original passport and birth certificates and photographs of Ms X. The applicant says that the original Shibis marriage certificate was double sided, stamped with the stamp of Shibis District Court, stamped with a further stamp and attested by the Somali Ministry of Justice and Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and signed on both sides by the Chairman of Shibis District Court. He says that the contents of the certificate confirm that the marriage took place on 7 November 2016.

8. In a letter of 1 July 2022, the Minister wrote to the applicant’s solicitors bringing to the applicant's attention a marriage certificate submitted in support of his asylum claim which issued from Galkaio District Court on 7 July 2016 (“the Galkaio marriage certificate”). The Minister understandably raised queries as to why there were two marriage certificates and why there were discrepancies between them, including that the applicant was married in front of two differently named judges, and that the witness names differed on the two certificates. The letter also raised a query as to why neither document referred to the marriage as being a marriage by proxy.

9. The applicant’s solicitors replied by letter of 3 August 2022 explaining that the Galkaio marriage certificate was obtained when the applicant was asked to provide a birth certificate as part of his application for international protection:-

“He asked a friend in Somalia to assist him in having a birth certificate or some form of evidence of his birth issued to address this. That friend provided evidence of birth and marriage to him. The evidence of marriage provided was the marriage certificate that he submitted to the IPO. He did not check its contents at the time of submission but realised subsequently that it contained a number of errors.”

10. The Minister's Unit raised further queries by letter of 4 August 2022, including a query as to why the IPO file did not show any evidence that the applicant had brought any errors from the original Galkaio marriage certificate to the attention of the IPO and also looking for evidence of a dowry being paid at the time the marriage took place, "or any other documentary evidence to support the application".

11. This letter was replied to by the applicant’s solicitor on 21 September 2022. The replying letter sought to deal with the absence of the original Galkaio marriage certificate, why the applicant had not clarified the inauthentic Galkaio marriage certificate with the IPO and why there was no independent evidence in relation to a dowry payment. The applicant’s solicitor in that letter said that the applicant received a copy of the Galkaio marriage certificate by email to a Gmail account:-

"The friend who obtained it sent it to him this way and he never received the original document from Somalia. He no longer has access to his Gmail account and cannot access or retrieve the email for this reason."

12. The letter also said that while the applicant informed his previous solicitor that the marriage certificate contained errors, at that time his solicitor was focused on dealing with a proposal to transfer the applicant back to Sweden and he was advised that the marriage certificate was not relevant to that issue and the IPO was not addressed on the marriage certificate issue for that reason. The letter also stated that the applicant had instructed his solicitor that the only evidence of the dowry payment was that which was recorded on the face of the marriage certificate and that a receipt for the dowry did not issue.

13. A follow-up letter from the applicant’s solicitors of 10 October 2022 said that the applicant had not been successful in his efforts to make contact with the witnesses and attendees to the marriage ceremony in Somalia and was therefore not in a position to provide evidence of that nature.

14. The Minister's Unit then wrote to the applicant’s solicitors on 19 October 2022 stating that "Before making a final determination in this matter we would kindly ask that your client provide evidence of his relationship with [Ms X]" (emphasis in original). The letter pointed out that no evidence of the actual ongoing relationship had been provided, which was why evidence of ongoing contact was sought in addition to evidence of any financial assistance the applicant provided to Ms X.

15. The applicant’s solicitors replied on 13 December 2022 providing a link to 1,500 pages of WhatsApp records from 2022 showing the ongoing contact between the applicant and Ms

X. A 45-page sample of these messages (in Somali) were sent to the Minister on 12 January 2023 due to issues on the Minister’s side in accessing the content at the original link provided.

16. On 17 January 2023, the Minister’s unit wrote a further letter to the applicant’s solicitor asking the applicant to provide a selection of screenshots of WhatsApp messages for the year 2016 (the year of marriage) and 2017 to 2021. The email stated that "The selection does not have to be large for any of the years but should demonstrate and contain content which assists in proving a subsisting marital relationship". It also asked the applicant to "consider providing any other evidence" within his power of procurement "which proves a subsisting marital relationship at the time of his international protection application".

17. The applicant’s solicitors replied by letter of 31 January 2023 submitting that it would be ultra vires of the Minister to engage in an enquiry/assessment of the subsistence of the marital relationship in determining the s. 56 application. It submitted, without prejudice to that position, that the applicant had produced a very significant volume of regular communications for 2022 which left little doubt that his marital relationship is genuine and subsisting. In relation to the request for submission of records of communications between the applicant and his wife in the years 2017 to 2021, the letter stated that his solicitors were instructed that these records were no longer available "due to the replacements of their smartphones in the intervening period". The letter stated that the applicant had no more evidence available to meet the enquiries and asked for the Minister to make a final decision.

Initial Refusal Decision

18. The initial refusal decision then issued on 12 September 2023 ("the initial refusal

decision").

19. There is a section headed "Marital relationship" in the initial refusal decision. This section references the applicant's case that he married Ms X by proxy on 7 November 2016 while he was living in Sweden and had never resided with her before arriving in Ireland in 2018. It references the Shibis marriage certificate and states that that document made no mention that the marriage was conducted by proxy or that the groom was residing in Sweden. It then notes that a review of the applicant's asylum file identified another marriage certificate that had been submitted by him, that from the Galkaio District Court which was dated 7 July 2016 and, therefore, pre-dated the actual wedding date by some four months.

20. The initial refusal decision then referenced queries raised by the Minister's Family Reunification unit ("the unit") as to why there were two marriage certificates from different courts and why there were discrepancies between them. It recorded the response of the applicant's solicitor of 3 August 2022 on these issues. It referenced follow-up clarification sought by the Minister's unit on 4 August 2022 and the applicant's solicitor’s reply of 10 October 2022. It further referenced the letter of 19 October 2022 from the Minister's unit which had asked for further information before making a final determination on the applicant, including asking for evidence of the "actual ongoing relationship" between the applicant and his wife, including evidence of financial support provided to his wife and evidence of funds transferred in relation to the payment of the dowry relating to the marriage. The initial refusal

decision then referenced the response of 13 December 2022 from the applicant's solicitor which sought to address those queries. It referenced the request of 17 January 2023 from the Minister's unit that the applicant provide WhatsApp messages and evidence of his marital relationship for the years 2017 to 2021, and the applicant solicitor’s response of 31 January 2023 to the effect that the applicant's solicitors were of the view that the “nature of the evidence being sought goes beyond the scope of what the legislation requires the Minister to determine" but confirming that there was no such evidence in any event.

21. The initial refusal decision then noted that the decision maker consulted the COI report "Somalia: Marriage and Divorce (Land Info – 14 June 2018)" submitted by the applicant’s solicitor and the section of that COI focused on the system of registration of marriage in Somalia. The initial refusal decision noted that:-

"These pages do support the client's legal representative’s claim that the issue of marriage registration is very haphazard, however this then calls into question the validity of the marriage certificate the applicant is requesting we consider. This report states that ‘marriage certificates have, however, been issued at the request of various Sharia courts in Mogadishu and other cities’ which is the case here."

22. The initial refusal decision had regard to the WhatsApp communications from 2022 and noted that they did show "that there is communication between the applicant and subject recently".

23. The initial refusal decision then states:

"To conclude, major issues around the validity of the marriage certificate have been identified. The fact that the applicant was able to obtain two marriage certificates from two different courts, signed by two different officials and witnessed by different people puts serious doubts over the legitimacy of either of the documents submitted. This point is further proven by the fact that the applicant himself admits that one of the certificates contains complete errors however was still issued with official stamps."

24. The decision maker concluded that she was "not satisfied that the information contained within the [Shibis marriage certificate] can be satisfactorily relied upon to be reliable and correct."

25. The initial refusal decision concludes that the decision-maker was:-

"…also not satisfied that the applicant has proven that there is a marital relationship ongoing either. The applicant has never lived with his wife and was unable to provide evidence of communication with his wife for any year other than 2022. No evidence of monetary support or any real marital relationship has been provided to support this claimed relationship."

Request for review and submission of further material

26. The applicant’s solicitor applied for a review of the initial refusal decision by letter of

9 May 2024 and, in that context, submitted a sworn affidavit from Ms X together with a certified English translation of the affidavit, and further COI as to the absence of a reliable system of marriage registration in Somalia. The letter requested that, insofar as the absence of information detailing the proxy nature of the marriage on the face of the Shibis marriage certificate contributed to its rejection as proof of the marriage, the Minister's Unit "review what appears to be inconsistency in the decision-making within your office regarding the assessment of marriage certificates evidencing proxy marriages in Somalia” and gave an example of a case where a different Somali client of the solicitor had obtained a positive family reunification

decision in reliance on a marriage certificate where the applicant had married his wife by proxy in Somalia and the certificate did not record the proxy nature of the marriage on its face.

The Review Decision

27. The review decision issued on 31 October 2024 upholding the initial refusal decision.

28. The review decision is a short one. It refers back to the initial refusal decision and the fact that it outlines "numerous" issues in relation to the marriage certificate question. The refusal decision then states that:-

"The unit included the responses received in relation to these (and other) queries [i.e.

queries in relation to the validity of the marriage certificates] and this unit gave your client an opportunity to provide other supporting information to support the claimed marital relationship and did not conclude its investigation of the application until informed by his legal representative that no further evidence was available to him and requested to make a final decision. The decision maker also referenced country of origin submissions by the applicant's legal representatives, the Somalia Land Info report."

29. The review decision then states:

"The conclusion of the decision outlined the reasons for the refusal of your client’s application and please note that the lack of reference to proxy marriages in the documents was not one of the substantive reasons for the refusal in this case. The

decision maker was not satisfied with the veracity of the marriage documents based on some of the discrepancies outlined above and the decision maker felt these documents cannot be satisfactorily relied upon to be reliable and correct. The decision maker also noted that they could not be sure of any marital relationship between the applicant and his wife as they have never lived together, evidence of contact is limited to one year and monetary support was never sent directly to his wife."

30. The review decision then engaged with the submission that the applicant was treated differently to another client of the applicant’s solicitor who also had a proxy marriage in Somalia, noting that "this is a false equivalency" as the other applicant “had none of the issues outlined above in relation to the marriage documentation” and that the applicant's application “was not refused solely on the basis of a lack of reference to a proxy marriage”.

31. The review decision then stated that “The affidavit of your client's wife and the other submissions with regard to Somalia are also noted and have been considered in this review” and stated:

“Upon review I am satisfied that the decision maker in this case conducted a comprehensive investigation of the case and gave your client opportunities to respond to any issues identified during the investigation and then produced a comprehensive

decision. The submissions provided by your office do not change the position of this unit that the documentation provided in support of this application were questionable in nature, and more questionable than the average application from similar Somali cases. It is on this basis that your request for a review of this decision is refused.”

32. In the circumstances, the reviewer upheld the first instance decision by refusing the request for a review.

33. It is common case that both the initial refusal decision and the review decision should be read together when considering the issues raised in these proceedings.

Relevant legal principles

34. As noted by Dunne J in A, S and I v Minister for Justice [2021] 3 IR 140 at 178, there is a consensus at international and European level, as expressed by the European Court of Human Rights in Tanda Muzinga v France (2260/2010, 10 July 2014) (“Tanda Muzinga”) at para. 75 "on the need for refugees to benefit from a family reunification procedure that is more favourable than that foreseen for other aliens". Dunne J, having quoted from the decision in Tanda Muzinga, stated (at 178, para 75) that “There can be no doubt therefore about the importance of family reunification for those who are forced to flee their country of origin”.

35. The legislature in this jurisdiction has sought to give effect to that consensus by means of the provisions of s. 56 of the 2015 Act. It is clear that s. 56 provides a statutory right to family reunification, subject to certain conditions being met.

36. Section 56(1) provides that a ‘qualified person’ (“the sponsor” for the purposes of the provision) may apply for permission to be given to limited categories of family members to join them by entering and residing in the State. Section 2 of the 2015 Act defines a ‘qualified person’ as, inter alia, a person who is a refugee and in relation to whom a refugee declaration is in force. The limited categories of family members who may seek to join a qualified person are set out in s.56(9). Section 56(9)(a) provides as one such category of person “where the sponsor is married, his or her spouse (provided that the marriage is subsisting on the date the sponsor made an application for international protection in the State)”.

37. When an application is made under s.56(1), s.56(2) provides that the Minister “shall investigate or cause to be investigated” such an application to determine, inter alia, “the identity of the person who is the subject of the application”, “the relationship between the

sponsor and the person who is the subject of the application”, and “the domestic circumstances of the person who is the subject of the application.”

38. Section 56(4) provides that “if the Minister is satisfied that the person who is the subject of an application under this section is a member of the family of the sponsor” (i.e. is a permitted family member) the Minister “shall” grant the permission to the relevant family member, subject only to s.56(7). Section 56(7) provides a list of instances where the Minister may refuse to give such permission including “in the interest of national security or public policy (“ordre public”)” or where the family member in question would themselves be excluded from international protection.

Summary of applicant’s claims

39. The applicant contends, in short, that the Minister in assessing his s.56 application wrongly addressed the question of the quality or nature of the underlying marriage relationship and not the proper question of whether, as a matter of fact, a marriage existed at the date of his international protection application. The applicant submits that s. 56 is only concerned with the fact of whether a marriage subsists and not the nature or quality of the relationship within the marriage. Accordingly, the applicant contends, there was a fundamental error of law in the Minister's approach.

40. The applicant also contends that the Minister acted irrationally in rejecting the Shibis marriage certificate simply because there were mistakes in the Galkaio marriage certificate. He says that the Minister erred in rejecting the Shibis marriage certificate without any basis related to the document itself.

41. The applicant further contends that the Minister failed to conduct an assessment of all of the evidence in the round in relation to the question of whether or not the applicant was validly married, in particular, that the Minister failed to properly engage with and weigh the other corroborating evidence advanced by the applicant, including the affidavit from Ms X, the contents of her identification documents, the contents of statements made well before the s. 56 application in the prior international protection application process and the contemporaneous communications between the applicant and Ms X from 2022.

42. The applicant also complains that the Minister, at least implicitly, placed some reliance in rejecting the application for family unification, on the fact that the Shibis marriage certificate did not on its face state that the marriage was conducted by proxy. He said it was arbitrary and capricious of the Minister to fail to treat the applicant's case similar to that of other Somali applicants whose marriage was conducted by proxy but were granted family reunification.

The Marriage Certificate rejection issue

43. It is appropriate to begin with the question of the rejection of the marriage certificate evidence.

44. The applicant challenges this decision as irrational and says the Minister erred in rejecting the Shibis marriage certificate without any basis related to the document itself; all of the reasons, in the applicant’s submission, related to the Galkaio marriage certificate (apart from the fact that the Shibis certificate does not, on its face, state that the marriage was conducted by proxy). The applicant further contends that the Minister failed to give sufficient reasons as to why the veracity of the Shibis marriage certificate was not accepted.

45. The applicant fairly accepts that he is not contending that the Minister must "blindly accept" the Shibis marriage certificate, however, he contends that the Minister failed in the obligation set out by Fennelly J at para. 52 of Hassan v Minister for Justice [2013] IESC 8 (“Hassan”) that the Minister must consider the assertion made by the applicant that the marriage has taken place and assess credibility based on all the circumstances. The applicant points to the fact that in this jurisdiction, outside the context of an application for family reunification under s. 56, a person may seek a declaration from the family law courts as to the marital status pursuant to s. 29 Family Law Act 1995, even where a foreign marriage certificate is unavailable.

46. In my view, the applicant’s submissions overlook the actual reasoning of the Minister as to why he did not accept the reliability of either the Galkaio or the Shibis marriage certificates.

47. The relevant COI information, under the heading "Registration of marriage", made clear that there was no reliable marriage registration system in Somalia, in the absence of a functioning central government for a number of years and that "the issuance of passports, ID cards and other certificates by different agencies is therefore based on the information provided by the person him or herself – possibly with witnesses or relatives present". The initial refusal

decision fairly noted that this section of the COI also stated, having stated that there was no central registration scheme and marriages have not been registered centrally, that "marriage certificates have however been issued at the request of the various Sharia courts in Mogadishu and other cities".

48. The applicant essentially contends that the Minister should have taken his word for it that the earlier certificate was inauthentic and that, as he had produced an original certificate from the Shibis District Court which had been stamped and contained information which accorded with information that he had provided, it must follow that that document was authentic. It is clear, however, that inauthentic marriage documents could be obtained in Somalia which, on their face, have official stamps as is evident from the copy of the Galkaio marriage certificate submitted by the applicant to the IPO. The fact that the Shibis marriage certificate had the appearance of authenticity on its face, given the stamps that appeared on it, and its general presentation, clearly did not demonstrate that it was authentic in and of itself, given the absence of a properly functioning marriage registration and marriage certificate issuing system in Somalia, based on the contents of the COI and the admittedly inauthentic nature of the ostensibly authentic Galkaio marriage certificate.

49. In my view, it was well within the range of decisions open to the Minister to take the view that he could not rely on either of the marriage certificates in all the circumstances. There was nothing irrational in the position taken by the Minister on this issue. The conclusion that there were "major issues around the validity of the marriage certificate" is fully supported by the reasoning that follows, namely, "The fact that the applicant was able to obtain two marriage certificates from two different courts, signed by two different officials and witnessed by different people put serious doubts over the legitimacy of either of the documents submitted" and that "This point is further proven by the fact that the applicant himself admits that one of the certificates contains complete errors however still issued with official stamps". These are legitimate and rational grounds for the conclusion which were squarely based on the evidence before the decision maker. In my view, there is no logical fallacy or unreasonable leap in the

decision maker holding that the information contained in the Shibis marriage certificate could not be satisfactorily relied upon to be reliable and correct in the circumstances. Minister wrongly addressed quality of marriage?

50. As we have seen, s. 56(9)(a) defines a member of the family of the qualified person ("the sponsor”) as, "where the sponsor is married, his or her spouse (provided that the marriage is subsisting on the date the sponsor made an application for international protection in the State)". It is clear from the terms of s. 56 as a whole that the applicant must demonstrate that he was married to his spouse at the date of his application for international protection in the State, and that the marriage should still validly subsist at the date of his application for family reunification. The latter requirement flows from the terms of s. 56(4) which provides that (subject to subs. (7) which allows the Minister to refuse or revoke any permission in certain circumstances including in the interest of national security or public policy) the Minister shall give permission to the spouse to enter and reside in the State if the Minister "is satisfied" that the person who is the subject of the application is the spouse of the sponsor, i.e. continues to be the sponsor’s spouse at the time of the re-unification application.

51. The authorities make clear (e.g. Hassan, Fennelly J, para. 50) that in the ordinary course, a valid marriage contracted outside Ireland can be proved by the production of a valid marriage certificate, including such a certificate that is valid under the lex loci of the marriage where the marriage has occurred outside of Ireland.

52. In Hassan, Fennelly J, in the Supreme Court, stated (at para. 52):

“In the present case, the Minister was confronted with an application based on a clear assertion of a marriage ceremony with legal effect in Somalia, combined with the total loss of any possibility of producing documentary proof. The Minister is essentially required to make an assessment based on all the evidence and with the assistance of the report from ORAC. He must consider the assertion made by the applicant that a marriage has taken place and assess its credibility, based on all the circumstances. He is not bound to accept a bald assertion but should consider it in combination with all other circumstances. One of those circumstances will be the reason offered for inability to produce a certificate. He should take into account such evidence as is provided that the parties have cohabited as a married couple. None of these considerations is decisive.”

53. It is clear from that passage that, in circumstances where a valid marriage certificate is not available or (as in this case) the reliability of the marriage certificate submitted by the applicant is regarded as questionable, it is legitimate for the Minister to look for other evidence to prove the fact of a valid subsisting marriage at the relevant dates. That can include evidence demonstrating that the parties are in fact a married couple. This approach appears to be supported by the terms of s. 56(2) which provides that the Minister "shall investigate, or cause to be investigated" an application for family reunification under the section to determine, inter alia, "the relationship between the sponsor and the person who is the subject of the application" (s. 56(2)(b)).

54. It is clear from the correspondence between the applicant's solicitor and the Minister’s department in relation to his s. 56 application, that the Minister had concerns in relation to the reliability of the marriage certificate and, accordingly, sought other evidence in relation to the fact of the alleged marriage. For example, in an email of 17 January 2023 from the Minister's family reunification unit to the applicant's solicitor, the unit sought evidence of WhatsApp messages to assist “in proving a subsisting marital relationship”.

55. In my view, it is clear that the Minister was concerned with establishing the fact of a subsisting valid marriage between the applicant and Ms X and not the quality of the relationship underpinning that marriage. This is clear from the terms of both the initial refusal decision and the review decision and the correspondence issued by the Minister’s unit. This is a legally permissible inquiry given the terms of s.56 and I do not see that there has been any error of law in the Minister’s approach in respect of this issue.

Other grounds

Erroneous reliance on absence of reference to proxy marriage?

56. The applicant also challenges as an error of law and/or being irrational and without any evidential basis the reliance in the initial refusal decision on the fact that the Shibis marriage certificate did not on its face state that the marriage was conducted by proxy and that the Minister acted arbitrarily in circumstances where the applicant’s solicitor had submitted evidence of another Somali applicant whose marriage was also conducted by proxy but who was granted family reunification.

57. In my view, these complaints are not well-founded.

58. The review decision makes clear that "the lack of a reference to proxy marriages in the documents was not one of the substantive reasons for the refusal in this case". Rather, the

decision rested on the fact that the decision maker was not satisfied with the veracity of the marriage documents based on the discrepancies outlined in the decision and the decision maker felt these documents could not "be satisfactorily relied upon to be reliable and correct". The

decision maker also noted that they could not be sure of any marital relationship between the applicant and his wife as they had never lived together, evidence of such context being limited to one year and monetary support was never sent directly to his wife.

59. The review decision expressly engages with the submission that the applicant was treated differently to another client of the applicant’s solicitor who also had a proxy marriage in Somalia. The review decision noted that "this is a false equivalency" as the other applicant had none of the issues identified in the applicant’s case in relation to the marriage documentation and further noted that the applicant's application was not reviewed solely on the basis of a lack of reference to a proxy marriage.

60. In my view these were legitimate conclusions based on valid reasons open to the

decision maker and I do not see any error of law or process on this issue in the circumstances.

Failure to have proper regard to affidavit and other evidence?

61. The applicant contends that the Minister in arriving at her decision failed to have any, or any proper, regard to various items of evidence, other than the marriage certificate evidence, which were relevant to the question of the existence of a valid marriage between him and Ms. X.

62. The applicant submitted that he was consistent throughout the international protection and family re-unification processes that he married Ms X on 7 November 2016. The applicant says that, in his initial interview with the IPO on 16 July 2018, he referred to being married and referred to his wife by name. Similarly, he referred to his wife by name in his interview pursuant to s. 13(2) of the 2015 Act, before the IPO on 21 August 2018. Likewise, he referred to his wife by name in his international protection questionnaire of 7 September 2018. He says that Ms X’s identity document from Somalia refers to her as married, that Ms X has provided corroborating affidavit evidence swearing to the fact of the marriage and the applicant had also provided contemporaneous evidence of ongoing communications between them in 2022 and explained why communications from the proceeding years were unavailable.

63. As set out earlier, the review decision stated that "The affidavit of your client's wife and the other submissions with regard to Somalia are also noted and have been considered in this review". The applicant complains that the Minister failed to properly engage with this evidence; the decision simply noted that Ms X's affidavit and other material had been considered in the review but provided no reasoning “path” as to why that material did not displace the Minister's concerns in relation to the reliability of the marriage certificate evidence. He submitted that the Minister unlawfully reached a conclusion unaccompanied by any reasons in the circumstances.

64. The applicant submits that, given the consequences of the failure by the Minister to grant his wife family reunification, a higher intensity of engagement with the materials put before the Minister was required and he cites the general principle established in Meadows v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2010] 2 IR 701 to this effect.

65. It will be recalled that the review decision concluded that it was “satisfied that the

decision maker conducted a comprehensive investigation of the case” and gave the applicant “opportunities to respond to any issues identified during the investigation and then produced a comprehensive decision”. It concluded that the submissions provided by the applicant did not change the position of the unit that "the documentation provided in support of this application was questionable in nature and more questionable than the average application from similar Somali cases".

66. While I accept that the review decision, in particular, is terse in relation to its engagement with the affidavit of Ms X and the information contained in the IPO reports, it does not seem to me that the assessment of the material before the decision-maker in the round fell short of what the law requires. Other than the Shibis marriage certificate – which I have held was not unreasonably found to be unreliable in all the circumstances – there was simply no independent or objective evidence of the fact of a valid marriage between the applicant and Ms X. Ms X’s affidavit is very short and simply repeats the information contained in the applicant's application as to the fact of the marriage and sets out information as to the marriage ceremony and its witnesses which appears on the face of the Shibis marriage certificate. The applicant did state in his solicitor’s correspondence with the Minister's unit that he was attempting to track down witnesses to the marriage but did not ultimately provide any evidence from them. The only other evidence, apart from that of the applicant and Ms X, was that of WhatsApp communications between the applicant and Ms X in 2022. Of themselves, these just proved contact between the two individuals in that period. No evidence was provided of financial assistance being provided by the applicant to Ms X. No other objective evidence of a subsisting valid marriage was put before the Minister.

67. In my view, in all the circumstances it was open to the Minister not to place much weight on the contents of the affidavit of Ms X or on the fact that the applicant, on the face of it, had been consistent since his IPO application in 2018 as to the fact of the marriage, the date of the marriage and to whom he was married. In particular, the circumstances surrounding the procurement of two irreconcilable marriage certificates from a country with no reliable marriage registration system, coupled with the lack of any other objective evidence as to the subsistence of a valid marriage, were such as to entitle the Minister in the round to form the view that there simply was not sufficient, reliable and convincing evidence of a marriage having occurred between the applicant and Ms X at all. Accordingly, I do not see that there was an error of law on this issue as alleged.

Lack of Candour

68. The Minister made submissions, in the event that I was otherwise minded to grant relief to the applicant, that the court should refuse such relief in exercise of its discretion on the basis of a lack of candour by the applicant within the international protection process and the s. 56 application process, based on his reliance on an admittedly inauthentic marriage certificate in the context of the Dublin III transfer process and on the fact that the applicant did not bring the inauthentic Galkaio marriage certificate to the Minister's attention on his initial s. 56 application.

69. I do not need to consider this issue given the view I have formed on the substantive judicial review application. However, it is important to reiterate the importance of candour on the part of applicants for international protection or family reunification. In circumstances where it may be in the nature of events that matters relied upon in support of such applications cannot be independently verified, it is all the more important that applicants are fully open and honest about the circumstances they rely upon for claims made within the immigration system.

70. While the authorities make clear that such a discretion exists in the court, the jurisdiction to dismiss an application for judicial review under the 2015 Act for abuse of conduct must "be exercised sparingly and only where the conduct can be considered serious and significant in the context of the system as a whole" (McKechnie J in the Supreme Court, MKFS v Minister for Justice [2024] 1 IR 615 at 663 (para. 110)). While the applicant's conduct here was undoubtedly inappropriate, particularly in relation to not bringing the prior inauthentic Galkaio marriage certificate to the Minister's attention on his initial s. 56 application, it does seem to me that his conduct fell somewhat short of the high threshold which the authorities emphasise must be hurdled before an application for judicial review will be dismissed on the ground of abusive conduct within the immigration system. It is relevant in this regard that there was nothing in the papers before me to suggest that the fact of whether or not the applicant was married had any bearing on him being granted refugee status.

Conclusion

71. For the reasons set out above, I refuse the applicant the relief he seeks.