European Court upholds Sweden’s refusal to grant refugees families residency status News
CherryX per Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
European Court upholds Sweden’s refusal to grant refugees families residency status

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled Thursday in Sweden’s favor that two cases of refusing to grant permanent residency to the families of an Eritrean and Ethiopian nationals respectively with refugee status did not constitute a violation of the right to family life and the right to be free from discrimination.

The law at issue is the requisite income and size-of-accommodation thresholds outlined in the “maintenance requirement” under section 9 of the Swedish Law concerning temporary restrictions on the granting of permanent residence permits for asylum seekers. The “maintenance requirement” would only be enforced if the applicant with refugee status applies for family reunification after three months of receiving refugee status.

In both cases, the ECtHR ruled that “the domestic authorities struck a fair balance between the interests of the applicant and those of the State in controlling immigration.” The ECtHR followed the reasoning produced by another ECtHR bench ruling on the case of Dabo v Sweden, whereby the three-month time limit for when the “maintenance requirement” could apply was justified because the refugee could apply for family reunification before the three-month time limit and, even after the three-month time limit, the refugee is likely to take measures for successful integration, which involves the secure of a stable income and accommodation. The ECtHR also found that the availability of legal guidance, the physical assistance granted to both applicants and the fact that “exceptional reasons” could be relied on for a full or partial exemption from the maintenance requirement under the amended Chapter 5, Section 3F of the Aliens Act, meant that the Swedish government did make concessions to ensure that the interests of the refugees, and the applicants in the two cases, were given ample opportunities and resources to exercise their rights to family reunification.

Both applicants that brought the case against the Swedish government relied on Article 8 and Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) as grounds to refute the legitimacy of the maintenance requirement and its associated time limit. Article 8 of the ECHR provides the right to respect for private and family life and Article 14 of the ECHR prohibits discrimination, whereby “the enjoyment of rights and freedoms…shall be without discrimination on any ground.”

The Swedish Migration Agency initially denied all the family reunification residency requests filed by the Eritrean national and later granted an Ethiopian national with the permanent residency for his family on his third attempt. The authorities exempted the Ethiopian refugee from satisfying the maintenance requirement on account of his age and medical history, including stress, high blood pressure and impaired vision, which made satisfying the maintenance requirement virtually impossible.

The reason for the refusals came down to the failure of both applicants to satisfy the requisite income and size-of-accommodation thresholds outlined in the “maintenance requirement.” Both the Eritrean and Ethiopian nationals submitted their requests for family reunification more than three months after being granted refugee status meant that their claims were subject to the maintenance requirement.

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