The applicant, of Roma origin with a troubled and criminal history. The Court considered the minister’s refusal of her request for a residence permit to enable her to live with her husband (entitled to permanent residence since 1988) and their son (born in 1989). The grounds of refusal included public order grounds, but also her husband’s failure to satisfy the minimum income requirements under the rules (para 15). The refusal was upheld by the domestic courts on both grounds (para 21), and by Strasbourg.
Having regard to her criminal record, the fact that her son would come of age in April 2007, and the lack of any insurmountable obstacles to her own return to Serbia where she had lived until the age of seven, it could not be said that the Netherlands authorities had failed to strike a fair balance between her interests and its own interest in controlling immigration and public expenditure and in the prevention of disorder and crime
The Court accepted the principle of a minimum income requirement: ‘In principle, the Court does not consider unreasonable a requirement that an alien having achieved a settled status in a Contracting State and who seeks family reunion there must demonstrate that he/she has sufficient independent and lasting income, not being welfare benefits, to provide for the basic costs of subsistence of his or her family members with whom reunion is sought.’
Citations:
16351/03, [2007] ECHR 336, [2007] 2 FCR 194
Links:
Statutes:
European Convention on Human Rights
Jurisdiction:
Human Rights
Cited by:
Cited – MM (Lebanon) and Others, Regina (on The Applications of) v Secretary of State and Another SC 22-Feb-2017
Challenge to rules requiring certain minimum levels of income (Minimum Income Requirement – MIR) for allowing entry for non-EEA spouse.
Held: The challenges udder the Human Rights Act to the Rules themselves failed. Nor did any separate issue . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights, Immigration
Updated: 21 July 2022; Ref: scu.251690