Restriction on non-EU marriage visas declared unlawful
12 October 2011
by Stephen Gregory
The Supreme Court has ruled a restriction on granting Visas to non-EU spouses of UK residents to be unlawful, after a married couple contested that it interfered with their human rights.
Non-EU individuals who were married to UK residents were previously barred from gaining a marriage visa to live in the UK until they reached the age of 21. Around 15,000 couples have been affected by the ruling since the qualifying age for a marriage visa was raised from 18 in November 2008.
However, the Supreme Court ruled that this restriction was a violation of article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which granted all EU residents the right to a private family life.
The restriction was ostensibly in place to prevent forced marriages in the UK, a practice that David Cameron himself has referred to as “little more than slavery”. However, Supreme Court Judge Lord Wilson stated that the restriction had done more to obstruct unforced marriages than it had done to deter forced unions.
Amber and Diego Aguilar, the couple contesting the ruling, were obstructed in this fashion. They had married when Diego was 18 and living in the UK on a student visa.
However, the age restriction on marriage visas was raised from 18 to 21 five days after they married, and Diego was refused a visa to stay in the country. Amber, a UK national, was forced to leave the country to stay with her husband. Amber said that she felt “forced into exile” from the country she grew up in.
The timing of the ruling is particularly unfortunate time for the government – just last week, home secretary Theresa May made a pledge to rewrite the UK’s immigration rules, and David Cameron on Monday publically declared his intentions to push for the criminalisation of forced marriage.
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