Sex offender’s partner to get residence bid re-examined
A Taiwanese woman denied New Zealand residency because of her partner’s sexual offending against children will have her case reexamined by authorities.
The woman’s partner, a 74-year-old man, was previously a member of the Catholic clergy.
In 2019, he was convicted on two counts of indecently assaulting a girl aged between 12 and 16, and one of indecently assaulting a girl who was under 12 years old. All three incidents occurred in 1977.
He was also convicted of one count of possessing objectionable material, which occurred in 2018.
The man was sentenced to four months’ home detention.
The woman, who is 45, has been in New Zealand on temporary visas since 2010, and has been in a relationship with the man since 2015.
She applied for residence in May 2017 under the partnership category.
However, following her partner’s convictions in 2019, Immigration New Zealand declined her application, saying he did not meet character requirements.
The woman, identified only as GN, appealed to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal.
In a recently-released decision, the tribunal said Immigration NZ’s decision was incorrect as it had not followed the immigration instructions that were in force when GN applied for residence.
When she submitted her application, the rules were that anyone convicted of a sex offence in the seven years prior would not be deemed eligible as a supporting partner.
Three days after she submitted, the rules changed to remove the seven-year time limit, meaning any conviction for a sex offence, at any time, would be considered.
GN’s partner would have had to be convicted between May 2010 and May 2017 to be ineligible as a supporting partner, the tribunal said, but was not convicted until 2019 so it could have no bearing on her chances.
The tribunal referred the case back to Immigration NZ to reconsider.
This is not the first case of its kind. In September, Stuff reported a woman who was denied residence because her partner was a child rapist got her case referred back to Immigration NZ as his risk of reoffending was deemed ‘‘not high’’.