Minister failed to consider Declaration of Responsibility in refusing family reunification application

Court of Appeal – asylum and immigration – judicial review – family reunification – Somalian national granted refugee status - – applied to have nephew join her in the State – High Court quashed the Minister’s decision to refuse her application and remitted the application to the Minister for reconsideration – background facts - judicial review proceedings - High Court judgment - issues on appeal – whether the Declaration of Responsibility was taken into account by the Minister - no evidence put before the Court from the decision-maker indicating whether she had in fact considered the Declaration of Responsibility in arriving at her decision – whether the Declaration was a relevant and material consideration - the respondent at all times maintained that the children were qualifying children even though they were not her biological children on the basis of her responsibility for them - the Minister was obliged to consider whether that satisfied the requirements of section 56 – whether the trial judge erred in finding that it was not futile to remit the matter for consideration by the Minister - discretionary decision - Minister erred in not having regard to the Declaration of Responsibility upon which the respondent had relied in her application - interests of justice therefore appear to weigh heavily in favour of remittal - High Court judge correctly found that this Declaration had not been considered by the decision-maker on behalf of the Minister and that it was relevant and material to the issue of whether the child was a child of the respondent within the meaning of the statutory provision - Minister’s argument that the trial judge incorrectly granted an order of certiorari on the grounds that to do so was futile as the remitted reconsideration of the respondent’s case was in effect bound to fail and thus would confer no benefit upon her must be rejected - respondent’s argument has reached the level of arguability, it is neither appropriate nor necessary to engage any further in the merits of the respective arguments made by the parties – appeal dismissed –