Background
MJ and AA each applied for Irish naturalisation under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956 and, after delays of approximately 40 and 41 months respectively, sought judicial review compelling the Minister for Justice to issue a decision. Their applications were selected by agreement among the parties and the court as pathfinder cases from a holding list of some 158 similar cases, all stalled pending the outcome of Garda background checks required to assess good character under s. 15(1)(b) of the 1956 Act.
In the principal judgment, MJ and AA v The Minister for Justice [2026] IEHC 51, Justice Bradley refused both applications. He found that neither the delays nor the Minister’s conduct amounted to a wrongful refusal to decide, or a delay so egregious as to be tantamount to a refusal, applying established mandamus principles including those set out in Singh v The Minister for Justice and Equality [2022] IEHC 437.
The present judgment addresses the costs applications that followed. Notably, by the time of the costs hearing both applicants had received confirmation from the Minister that their naturalisation applications had been approved in principle.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Bradley made no order as to costs in either case, leaving each party to bear its own costs. He accepted that the applications satisfied the criteria for public interest proceedings under Little v The Chief Appeals Officer (No. 2) [2024] IESC 53, and that the Minister — as the entirely successful party under s. 169(1) of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 — was presumptively entitled to costs. However, he exercised his discretion against awarding costs to the Minister on the basis that both cases had been formally designated by all parties as pathfinder cases selected from a large cohort to resolve a common legal argument.
The court drew a distinction between pathfinder cases that clarify ambiguous or uncertain law and those — like these — that apply well-established mandamus principles to a high volume of factually similar cases. Because the cases fell into the latter category, the applicants could not recover any portion of their own costs: there was no new point of law or statutory ambiguity sufficient to justify a costs award in favour of unsuccessful litigants. Equally, however, the systemic benefit of the exercise — disposing of the holding list and the general interest in concluding litigation — weighed against imposing a costs order on applicants who had been selected precisely for that purpose.
Justice Bradley also noted that the determination of costs was unlikely to have a significant deterrent effect on the broader category of persons affected, and that no disapplying factors from Little (No. 2) existed that would have required a different outcome.
Key Takeaways
- Where parties and the court jointly designate cases as pathfinder cases drawn from a large holding list, that designation is a significant factor supporting a “no order as to costs” outcome, even when the applicants lose on the merits.
- A court will distinguish between pathfinder cases that develop or clarify the law and those that simply apply settled principles at scale; only the former is likely to support a costs award in favour of the unsuccessful party.
- The public interest exception recognised in Little (No. 2) does not automatically follow from the volume of affected cases or a holding list — exceptionality under para. 71 of that judgment must also be demonstrated before an unsuccessful litigant can recover costs.
- The Minister’s concession, made in correspondence, that the proceedings would have systemic benefit for the State weighed against awarding costs to the Minister despite the Minister’s complete success on the merits.
Why It Matters
This decision provides practical guidance on costs in multi-party public law litigation managed through holding lists — an increasingly common case-management technique in Irish judicial review. It clarifies that the pathfinder or test-case label, while not determinative, carries real weight when it was adopted by all parties and the court alike, and can displace the ordinary costs-follow-the-event rule even where the public authority succeeds entirely.
For practitioners advising clients whose cases sit in naturalisation holding lists, the judgment signals that agreeing to a test-case framework is likely to shield them from an adverse costs order if the lead cases fail, but will not generate a positive costs award in their favour unless genuine legal uncertainty — beyond the mere volume of pending claims — can be shown.