Rohingya man challenges refusal to let his wife come to Ireland

A Rohingya man who won his case over the absolute ban on asylum seekers working here is challenging the Minister for Justice’s refusal to let his wife join him in Ireland.

The man has also sought to have his two children, who are in an orphanage in Bangladesh, join him in Ireland under the family re-unification scheme but that application has yet to be decided upon.

A member of the persecuted Rohingya minority in Myanmar, the man spent eight years in direct provision before getting refugee status in September 2016.

Last May, the Supreme Court upheld his claim that the ban preventing asylum seekers working before their status is decided is unconstitutional. The court will make a formal declaration to that effect next February.

After getting refugee status, the man applied last March for permission to be joined here by his wife, whom he married last January in Bangladesh, along with his brother and his two children by his first wife, who died in 2010.

On May 16th, the Minister refused permission for his wife on the grounds that, under section 56.9 of the International Protection Act 2015, before a spouse can join a refugee here the refugee must be married at the time they seek protection.

The man and his wife are challenging that refusal and a hearing date will be fixed later for their case, taken against the Minister, the Attorney General and Ireland. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is a notice party.

Now in his late 30s, the man arrived here on July 16th, 2008, applied for refugee status the following day, and got refugee status on September 19th, 2016.

He says he has two children, one born in 2003 and the second in 2005, by his first wife who died in 2010 after a serious illness.

Discriminatory

He says he married his second wife last January and they lived at her home in Bangladesh until he returned to Ireland in February.

The Minister has acknowledged receipt of the family reunification application concerning his children, which is still being processed.

However, the Minister informed him on May 16th that because his wife did not meet the definition of a member of his family under section 56.9, the application for family reunification in respect of her was refused.

That refusal, it is claimed, breaches various rights of the man, including his family and private life rights under the Constitution, European Convention of Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.

He is also seeking, if necessary, various declarations including that section 56.9.a is repugnant to the Constitution and discriminatory.

He claims that from 2008, when he first sought refugee status, and 2016, when he got it, the right to family reunification was governed by section 18 of the Refugee Act 1996.

Under section 18, a refugee’s spouse fell within the definition of a family member provided the marriage existed when the application for family reunification, rather than protection status, was made.

Section 56.9 changed that criterion to require the marriage existed when the refugee applied for protection.

He also says because he was banned from working for eight years until he got refugee status, he cannot meet the minimum financial threshold applicable to family reunification for non-nationals lawfully residing in the State, which is €30,000 in each of the last two years.