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It discusses about Ireland's mandatory requirement that non-EU family members of an EU citizen who want to join them in Ireland should have resided in another EU member state.
This requirement is not set in the EU free movement directive. So it was challenged.
Does anyone know the outcome?
I cannot find any relevant judgements from June 2007 that were published by the Irish High Court using the judgement finder.
However, over 50 similar cases were issued at the High Court regarding this matter, and all but 10 were settled prior to a bundle of four cases being issued before the High Court which ultimately referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
This bundle of four cases was Metock & Ors. v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2008] IEHC 77 which ultimately became Case C-127/08 at the ECJ.
It's unclear why the 15 June 2007 judgement hasn't been uploaded, or why it took until 14 March 2008 for the High Court to refer the matter to the ECJ.
In conclusion, Ireland was ruled to have wrongly interpreted the relevant Directive and the Court held that non-EU family members of an EU citizen can move to an EU Member State without needing to have resided in another EU Member State prior to that.
Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC precludes legislation of a Member State which requires a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in that Member State but not possessing its nationality to have previously been lawfully resident in another Member State before arriving in the host Member State, in order to benefit from the provisions of that directive.
Article 3(1) of Directive 2004/38 must be interpreted as meaning that a national of a non-member country who is the spouse of a Union citizen residing in a Member State whose nationality he does not possess and who accompanies or joins that Union citizen benefits from the provisions of that directive, irrespective of when and where their marriage took place and of how the national of a non-member country entered the host Member State.
