Post
by auto_w » Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:41 am
Hi,I am Lithuanian citizen and have been residing and working in Ireland since May 2004. Over a month ago, I have married Russian citizen who is currently residing in Russia. Marriage was registered and took place in Russian Federation. I've met my spouse in Ireland, 2 years ago when he was on a short study trip. We met several times while he was in Ireland, and upon expiry of student visa he returned home. Nonetheless, we stayed in touch and communicated via email, internet as well as telephone.
Application for visa was submitted to the Irish Embassy in Moscow which was a month later refused due to insufficient evidence of a relationship being in existence prior to visa application/marriage. Furthermore, refusal letter states that ‘for immigration purposes it is not sufficient for a relationship to have developed over the internet or by telephone/sms. A relationship must include a number of face to face meetings (excluding webcam) between the parties.
A number of additional visa application supporting documents not listed under official visa documents and requirements list where requested to support the application including pictures, phone call history for the past 6 months related to both parties and evidence of internet communication. We where unable to provide the above due to the fact that when my spouse was in Ireland we didn’t take pictures, phone call history could not be provided due to pre-paid phone sim cards that where/ are used to make calls. Nevertheless, in my opinion this is not a reasonable ground to imply that relationship didn’t exist, hence it constitutes violation of human rights
I would like to lodge an appeal related to this decision to the Irish Embassy in Moscow, however I believe the appeal decision will not be made favorably. I should be grateful to anyone if you could advise what course of action should be taken in this matter to reach the best possible outcome
I look forward to hearing from you soon.