Visa bid couple lose claim over messages

A SOMALI woman and her Kenyan husband have lost a legal claim that the Justice Minister is not entitled to a translation of WhatsApp messages allegedly sent between them – despite claiming they would verify their relationship.

The Court of Appeal has overruled their bid to prevent the messages being translated on the grounds of their right to marital privacy.

The 52-year-old woman, a mother-ofthree and a naturalised Irish citizen, was applying for a visa for her new husband to join her in Ireland.

They said that 130 pages of WhatsApp messages and calls to a number of different people, who were not identified in evidence, would back up her relationship history with her husband.

However, the law states that such messages must be translated – something which they did not want to do.

The woman first came to Ireland in 1996, and applied for asylum. Her three daughters are all Irish citizens and their fathers live in Ireland. She met her new husband while she was holidaying in Kenya in 2012 – the year she was granted Irish citizenship. She said they stayed in contact and were married in Kenya in 2013.

Judge Charles Meenan, of the Court of Appeal, noted that the High Court had previously ruled in favour of the unidentified woman and her husband, saying the minister was wrong to refuse the man a visa to join his wife.

The High Court had said the minister should not have discounted the WhatsApp messages entirely, but should have given the couple’s solicitors an opportunity to identify more clearly who had sent the messages. It said: ‘Such material, even without translation, was capable of being evaluated as it could demonstrate duration and frequency of communications and attempted communications between [the couple] using WhatsApp, video calls, voice calls and messages.’

However, Judge Meenan disagreed with this. He held that the visa rules clearly stated that the minister should be able to read the content of messages.

The judge added: ‘It is clear that there is no absolute right to marital privacy.’

The case will now be sent back to the High Court for further consideration of the couple’s application.