The Right to Family Reunification in Terms of Obtaining Permission to Legalize the Residence of Aliens (Foreigners) with Irregular Immigration Status in the Light of the Case-Law (Jurisprudence) of the Commission on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights

Abstract

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights was conceived as an instrument to protect the family from arbitrary state action – except where the unity of the family endangers six legitimate objectives, namely: state security, public safety, economic
well-being, the protection of public order, the protection of health and morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Thus, the starting point of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter: ‘ECtHR’) in migrant family reunification cases should be the family’s right to choose its place of residence, limited only by the legitimate objectives indicated above.2 Meanwhile, in family reunification cases, the starting point of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights is ‘as a matter of well-established international law’ – the right of states to control the entry, residence and expulsion of aliens.3 This means that the European Court of Human Rights has established the right of states to control migratory movements as a seventh – non-conventional – legitimate objective.4 The application of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereafter: ‘ECHR or Convention’) to migration matters is thus always a balancing exercise between the effective protection of human rights and the autonomy of states parties to the Convention in regulating migration flows, where the right of states to control migration is in principle the rule and human rights are generally the exception. The aftermath of this is the Strasbourg ‘elswhere test’, according to which a family has the right to remain on the territory of the host state if it cannot lead a family life elsewhere. This therefore has important implications for the status of legal migrants, but also for those with irregular migration status. The ECtHR is adamant that in cases of irregular residence, aliens can only in exceptional circumstances count on the protection of Article 8 of the Convention. The aim of this article is therefore to attempt to answer the question of whether, and if
so to what extent, the human rights standards on the right to family reunification developed by the Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter: ‘the Commission’) and the European Court of Human Rights protect aliens with an irregular migration status from
separation from family members residing on the territory of the host state. The thesis of the article is that the human rights standards on the right to family reunification developed by the Commission and the ECtHR do not sufficiently protect aliens with irregular migration status from separation from family members residing on the territory of the host country. The article is devoted to a critical analysis of the ECtHR’s case law on obtaining permission to legalise the residence of aliens with irregular immigration status who have family members on the territory of the host state with whom they wish to reunite. It calls for a profound reform of the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in this area.

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