| Applicant name | DABO |
| Applicant type | natural person (immigrant) |
| Number of applicants | 1 |
| Country | Sweden |
| Application no. | 12510/18 |
| Date | 18/01/2024 |
| Judges | Marko Bošnjak, President, Alena Poláčková, Lətif Hüseynov, Péter Paczolay, Gilberto Felici, Erik Wennerström, Raffaele Sabato |
| Institution | Court |
| Type | Judgment |
| Outcome Art. 8 | No violation |
| Reason | Positive obligation (balance with economic well-being) |
| Type of privacy | Relational privacy |
| Keywords | Family reunification |
| Facts of the case | The application concerns a refusal to grant family reunification. The applicant was granted asylum in Sweden on 8 March 2016. On 20 July 2016 Law 2016:752 concerning temporary restrictions on the granting of permanent residence permits for asylum seekers in Sweden entered into force. It introduced, among other things, a maintenance requirement for family reunification, unless an application had been lodged within three months after the sponsor in Sweden had been granted asylum. The applicant’s first wife and five children applied in November 2016 for residence permits on the basis of family reunification. Their applications were refused because the applicant, at that time, could not fulfil the maintenance requirement. The applicant relied on Article 8 of the Convention. |
| Analysis | As to the margin of appreciation to be awarded, the Court lists several factors, including the quality of parliamentary and judicial review. The application for family reunification was refused as the applicant could not fulfil the maintenance requirement. The applicant was a doctor by profession and had worked as such in Syria. He had participated in the Public Employment Service’s integration measures since April 2016 and studied Swedish. Therefore he had good prospects of being able to fulfil the maintenance requirement in the future. He had not yet found employment, though, and it cannot be concluded that he had done all that could reasonably be expected of him to earn sufficient income to cover his and his family’s expenses. Since the applicant’s first wife and children resided in Jordan, they were able to maintain contact via, inter alia, phone calls and text messages, and the applicant has not presented any objective grounds for why he would be excluded from visiting them there or in other countries. The family members abroad in respect of whom family reunification had been requested had never been to Sweden and had no ties to the country other than their relationship to the applicant, who was residing there. The applicant’s first wife had been living under UNHCR protection in Jordan since the summer of 2013 and the applicant had not seen her since then. It is noteworthy that he remarried in November 2014, and that polygamy is not legal in Sweden. Having regard to the foregoing, the Court concludes that in the circumstances of the present case, the domestic authorities struck a fair balance between the interests of the applicant and those of the State in controlling immigration, and that they did not overstep the margin of appreciation afforded to them when refusing the request for family reunification. |
| Other Article violation? | – |
| Damage awarded | – |
| Documents | Judgment |