15 Colum. J. Eur. L. 321 (2009)
Nathan Cambien M.Jur. University of Oxford; Ph. D. fellow of the Research Foundation-Flanders, Institute for European law, University of Leuven. The author wishes to thank Tim Corthaut for his valuable comments and suggestions.
On July 25, 2008, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (“ECJ” or “Court”), sitting as the Grand Chamber, handed down its judgment inBlaise Baheten Metock and Others v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform[1], a mere four months after receiving a request for a preliminary ruling from the High Court of Ireland. Metock and Others is a new case in a line of cases in which non-EU[2] nationals who are family members of a national of one of the Member States claim a right of residence in one of the Member States. The ECJ was invited to pronounce on the validity of an Irish law which granted such rights only to non-EU family members of EU citizens who had previously resided lawfully in another Member State. The judgment is groundbreaking for the explicit reconsideration of the Court’s earlier case law in the field, the controversial Akrich case[3] in particular. As such, Metock and Others further contributes to shaping clarity regarding the respective powers of the EU and the Member States in the field of immigration. Furthermore, the case is exceptional in being decided under the accelerated preliminary ruling procedure, which has only rarely been applied.
Endnotes
[1] Case C-127/08, Blaise Baheten Metock & Others v. Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Metock & Others), 3 C.M.L.R. 39 (2008).
[2] The prefix “non-EU” will be used throughout this article to refer to persons who do not have the nationality of one of the Member States, and hence are not “citizens of the Union” in the sense of Article 17(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, Dec. 29, 2006, 2006 O.J. (C 321E) 37 [hereinafter TEC]. “Citizens of the Union” will be referred to as “EU citizens” or “Union citizens.”
[3] Case C-109/01, Sec’y of State for the Home Dep’t v. Hacene Akrich, 2003 E.C.R. I-9607. See also infra note 76 and accompanying text.
