[JURIST] The European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website; EU backgrounder] on Tuesday ruled [judgment text] that immigration lists barring non-Europeans from EU countries must comply with the principle of freedom of movement [EU background materials] and that EU members states must investigate [ECJ press release, PDF] whether the presence in the EU of persons on the list poses a true threat. The case before the court involved two Algerians who were married to Spanish citizens but were barred from being in Spain because of an immigration blacklist that applied to all EU countries except the UK, Ireland and Denmark. Germany placed the two on the Schengen Information System [EU backgrounder; Wikipedia backgrounder], but the reason for one was only that he had been convicted of driving without a proper license. The court's ruling mandates that member states "must verify whether the presence of those persons constitutes a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society" before banning them from entering the Schengen countries. EUPolitix.com has more.