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European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union

To ensure that the law is enforced, understood and uniformly applied in all Member States, a judicial institution is essential. That institution is the Court of Justice of the European Communities. It is composed of three courts: the Court of Justice (created in 1952), the Court of First Instance (created in 1988) and the Civil Service Tribunal (created in 2004). The Court of Justice of the European Communities, together with the national courts, thus constitutes the European Community’s judiciary. The Court’s main task is to interpret Community law uniformly and to rule on its validity. It answers questions referred to it by the national courts, which play a vital role, as they apply Community law at local level. The judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Communities — together with the treaties, regulations, directives and decisions — make up Community law.  Website: curia.europa.eu/en/
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E. v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie (C‑635/17) (request for preliminary ruling)

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 | Document type: Case Law | 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

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