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class="MsoNormal">A judge has cleared the way for a High Court challenge by a Belarusian man refused naturalisation over an apparent passport glitch.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">The court heard a stamp required to show his continuous residency expired because his passport was in the hands of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service for 2 months.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">The court heard the father-of- two settled with his wife in Ireland in 2001.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">He has lawful permission to reside and work here but is required to go to garda immigration from time to time to get his permit extended.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">He applied for naturalisation in July last year.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">The process requires him to show continuous proof of residence in the country for a year prior to that date.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">His lawyers say he was told he did not have the necessary proof because his permit expired the previous September but they claim this was while his passport was in the hands of the Immigration Service.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">They say he sent it in for renewal in August without time conditions and did not get it back for almost 2 months by which time the stamp was out of date.

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class="MsoNormal"> lang="EN-IE">The court has allowed him to bring a legal challenge against the State which will be heard in November.