A HIGH COURT judge has ordered the Minister of National Security to reconsider a Pakistani woman’s permanent residency application made more than a decade ago.
Justice Devindra Rampersad also ordered the Chief Immigration Officer to reconsider the woman and her husband’s appeal of a 2020 deportation order against them.
After granting several declarations in favour of the couple, the judge made the orders.
He declared the decision of the CIO to recommend to the minister that the woman be denied permanent residence was unfair given the length of time since she applied and had a child born in TT at the time.
Due to the nature of the woman's entry into Trinidad and Tobago, Newsday has decided not to publish her name.
The judge also declared that the minister’s decision to deem the woman's permanent residency application unsuccessful was contrary to the rules of natural justice, procedurally unfair and that he exercised his power “in a manner so unreasonable and/or irrational and/or procedurally irregular that no reasonable minister would have done so.”
Rampersad held the minister also failed to pay attention to the interests and the needs of the family’s two children, born in TT in 2019 and 2023, and did not give sufficient consideration to the hardship a return to Pakistan may cause them.
As part of his order, Rampersad directed that his ruling and the file be served on the Children’s Authority to appoint a child advocate to oversee the children’s interests at the appeal of the deportation orders against their parents and their mother’s permanent residency application to advocate on any possible breach of their rights if they were to be relocated to Pakistan and if it is in their best interests in terms of education and education, among others.
The minister’s reconsideration is also to be done after he hears from the child advocates.
“Although minors, the children, who are citizens of Trinidad and Tobago by birth, have rights which they may not be able to exercise if they are deported to Pakistan…For instance, they will lose the advantage of growing up and being educated in ‘their own country, their own culture and their own language.
The court has particular concerns about the rights of the children to access to education and health care.
“Moreover, the children, who are Trinidadian citizens, ought not to be blamed for their parent's shortcomings as it relates to their immigration delay and deficiencies.
“The parents have also not posed any threat to national security or public safety throughout the years of them living in the country.”
“In this case, the court does not have all of the information before it with respect to the desirability of these children growing up in another country that is not their own by birth.
“Those are matters, in any event, that have to be considered by the decision-maker and not by the court.
“There is no evidence that the decision-maker – ie the second respondent – even considered these matters and they are obviously matters of grave concern especially in
