Supreme Court ruling on citizenship in New Year
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) appeared before the Supreme Court last week in joined cases that concerned the right to citizenship of children born abroad to same-sex couples of different nationalities.
The court had granted the commission permission to appear as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the cases, known as X and Y.
Over the course of a three-day hearing, the court heard that two lesbian couples had conceived babies through a process of shared-motherhood IVF.
This process involved creating an embryo from an anonymous donor and an egg from one mother and implanting the embryo in the second mother.
In both couples, a non-Irish mother gave birth to a baby that had been conceived using an egg from an Irish mother.
Passports refused
After the birth of the children, their mothers applied to the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Irish passports.
The minister declined to issue passports to the children, saying that the birth mothers did not satisfy the definition of the term ‘parent’ under section 7 of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956. Both couples sought to challenge the minister’s decision by way of judicial review.
In the High Court, Ms Justice Phelan found in favour of the parents. The minister appealed the decision by ‘leap frog appeal’ to the Supreme Court.
In the Supreme Court hearing, IHREC provided written and oral submissions on the human-rights and equality issues arising in the case.
Equality provision
It argued that, in failing to provide for a legislative pathway to pass citizenship by descent to the children in these cases, the State had breached the equality provision under article 40.1 of the Constitution.
At the conclusion of the three-day hearing, the court reserved its judgment, which is expected in the New Year.
Chief commissioner Liam Herrick said that the cases raised “profound questions” about how citizenship by descent was passed to children born abroad through shared-motherhood IVF.