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Teen wins court appeal for citizenship application

By October 15, 2019 No Comments

Teen wins court appeal for citizenship application

A teenage girl who has lived here with her east European parents since 2012, and whose five-year-old sister was born here, has won her appeal against the Justice Minister’s refusal of her application for citizenship.

The minister must now reconsider Adriana Borta’s application in line with the Court of Appeal’s finding he gave inadequate reasons for his decision that her Irish associations were “not sufficiently strong” to warrant naturalisation.

Through her mother Nadejda Borta, Adriana (16) appealed over the High Court’s dismissal of her challenge to the minister’s refusal. Adriana’s parents were Moldovan citizens by birth but her mother later became a naturalised Romanian citizen.

The family have lived here since August 2012, when Adriana was aged nine.

Her mother applied for citizenship for Adriana in 2016 on the basis of being the sister of an Irish citizen child, being in full-time education here and having lived here at the time of application for four-and-a-half years.

The minister refused to grant a certificate of naturalisation under section 16 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956.

While acknowledging Adriana is a person with “Irish associations”, the minister did not consider those associations sufficiently strong to grant naturalisation.

Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly noted a person is of Irish association if they are “related by blood, affinity or adoption to, or is a civil partner of, a person who is an Irish citizen or entitled to be an Irish citizen”.

In exercising his discretion, the minister failed to give adequate reasons, she held.

Irish Independent