Case Law

1. The application concerns the Swedish authorities’ refusal to grant residence permits to a mother and her son, who were in Syria, on the basis of their family ties with another son/brother who had been granted subsidiary protection in Sweden. The applicants complained that the Law on temporary restrictions on the possibility of being granted a residence permit in Sweden (which had entered into force on 20 July 2016 and had remained in force until 19 July 2019) had suspended their right to family reunification in breach of Article 8 of the Convention, and that the difference in treatment, with regard to family reunification, of persons granted refugee status and of persons (such as the second applicant) who had been granted subsidiary protection status, had constituted discrimination contrary to Article 14 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 8.

20 October 2022 | Judicial Body: Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights | Legal Instrument: 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) | Topic(s): Family reunification | Countries: Sweden - Syrian Arab Republic

194. Having regard to all the above considerations, the Court is not satisfied, notwithstanding their margin of appreciation, that the authorities of the respondent State, when subjecting the applicant to a three-year waiting period before he could apply for family reunification with his wife, struck a fair balance between, on the one hand, the applicant’s interest in being reunited with his wife in Denmark and, on the other, the interest of the community as a whole to control immigration with a view to protect the economic well-being of the country, to ensure the effective integration of those granted protection and to preserve social cohesion (see paragraph 165 above). 195. It follows that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

9 July 2021 | Judicial Body: Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights | Topic(s): Family reunification | Countries: Denmark - Syrian Arab Republic