Case Law

1. The Court of Justice of the European Union has jurisdiction, on the basis of Article 267 TFEU, to interpret Article 11(2) of Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where a national court is called upon to rule on an application for family reunification lodged by a beneficiary of subsidiary protection, if that provision was made directly and unconditionally applicable to such a situation under national law. 2. Article 11(2) of Directive 2003/86 must be interpreted as precluding, in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, in which an application for family reunification has been lodged by a sponsor benefiting from subsidiary protection in favour of a minor of whom she is the aunt and allegedly the guardian, and who resides as a refugee and without family ties in a third country, that application from being rejected solely on the ground that the sponsor has not provided official documentary evidence of the death of the minor’s biological parents and, consequently, that she has an actual family relationship with him, and that the explanation given by the sponsor to justify her inability to provide such evidence has been deemed implausible by the competent authorities solely on the basis of the general information available concerning the situation in the country of origin, without taking into consideration the specific circumstances of the sponsor and the minor and the particular difficulties they have encountered, according to their testimony, before and after fleeing their country of origin.

13 March 2019 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Complementary forms of protection - Country of origin information (COI) - Evidence (including age and language assessments / medico-legal reports) - Family reunification | Countries: Eritrea - Netherlands

Propose a la cour par le A.G. : L’article 11, paragraphe 2, de la directive 2003/86/CE du Conseil, du 22 septembre 2003, relative au droit au regroupement familial, doit être interprété en ce sens qu’il ne s’oppose pas à une législation nationale en vertu de laquelle le bénéficiaire d’une protection internationale est tenu, aux fins de l’examen de sa demande de regroupement familial, d’expliquer d’une manière plausible les raisons pour lesquelles il se trouve dans l’incapacité de fournir des pièces justificatives officielles attestant de l’existence d’un lien familial, pour autant que l’autorité nationale compétente apprécie ces explications au regard non seulement des informations pertinentes, tant générales que particulières, concernant la situation dans le pays d’origine de ce dernier, mais également de la situation particulière dans laquelle celui-ci se trouve.

29 November 2018 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Children's rights - Family reunification - Refugee identity documents - Right to family life | Countries: Eritrea - Netherlands

1. The Court of Justice has jurisdiction, on the basis of Article 267 TFEU, to interpret Article 12(1) of Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification in a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where a national court is called upon to rule on a beneficiary of subsidiary protection’s right to family reunification, if that provision was made directly and unconditionally applicable to such a situation under national law. 2. Article 12(1) of Directive 2003/86 does not preclude national legislation which permits an application for family reunification lodged on behalf of a member of a refugee’s family, on the basis of the more favourable provisions for refugees of Chapter V of that directive, to be rejected on the ground that that application was lodged more than three months after the sponsor was granted refugee status, whilst affording the possibility of lodging a fresh application under a different set of rules provided that that legislation: – lays down that such a ground of refusal cannot apply to situations in which particular circumstances render the late submission of the initial application objectively excusable; – lays down that the persons concerned are to be fully informed of the consequences of the decision rejecting their initial application and of the measures which they can take to assert their rights to family reunification effectively; and – ensures that sponsors recognised as refugees continue to benefit from the more favourable conditions for the exercise of the right to family reunification applicable to refugees, specified in Articles 10 and 11 or in Article 12(2) of the directive.

7 November 2018 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Family reunification | Countries: Netherlands

an investigation into the origin of a foreign national is the responsibility of the state secretary and is not limited to a language analysis. If a language analysis does not provide a definitive answer about the origin of the applicant, but the State Secretary maintains his position that an alleged origin is not credible, he will have to motivate this. The State Secretary has, and wrongly, not been able to assess the credibility of the applicant's statement that she has been living indoors for 15 years. He also wrongly failed to respond to the report by Buro Kleurkracht that supports her story. The State Secretary has therefore not soundly substantiated that the origin of the applicant is not credible.

4 October 2018 | Judicial Body: Netherlands, The: Council of State (Raad van State) | Topic(s): Credibility assessment - Evidence (including age and language assessments / medico-legal reports) | Countries: Iraq - Netherlands

(1) The Court has jurisdiction to answer the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the referring court which relate to the interpretation of the provisions of Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification in a case concerning the right of residence of a member of the family of a beneficiary of subsidiary protection status, where the provisions of that directive have been declared directly and unconditionally applicable to the beneficiaries of subsidiary protection status in national law. (2) The system provided for under Directive 2003/86 precludes a national provision, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which an application for family reunification on the basis of the more favourable provisions of Chapter V of that directive can be rejected for the sole reason that it was not submitted within the three-month period laid down in the third subparagraph of Article 12(1) of that directive, since that period cannot be regarded as a time bar and that application must be considered in the light of Article 7 and Article 24(2) and (3) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which require the Member States to examine applications for family reunification in the interests of the children concerned, with a view to promoting family life and preventing both the objective and the effectiveness of Directive 2003/86 from being undermined. In addition, the failure to have regard to the guiding principles of that directive in the event of the rejection of an application for family reunification for the purposes of Article 12 thereof because the three-month period provided for in the third subparagraph of paragraph 1 of that article is exceeded cannot be justified by the fact that the examination of another application submitted under Article 7(1) of Directive 2003/86 would take account of those guiding principles.

27 June 2018 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Family reunification - Right to family life | Countries: Netherlands

interpretation of the second subparagraph of Article 27(2), Article 28(1) and Article 28(3)(a) of Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States

2 May 2018 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Exclusion clauses - National security / Public order | Countries: Afghanistan - Belgium - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Croatia - Netherlands

Article 2(f) of Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification, read in conjunction with Article 10(3)(a) thereof, must be interpreted as meaning that a third-country national or stateless person who is below the age of 18 at the time of his or her entry into the territory of a Member State and of the introduction of his or her asylum application in that State, but who, in the course of the asylum procedure, attains the age of majority and is thereafter granted refugee status must be regarded as a ‘minor’ for the purposes of that provision.

12 April 2018 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Topic(s): Family reunification - Unaccompanied / Separated children | Countries: Eritrea - Netherlands