In a new case at the EFTA Court 🇪🇺, the Supreme Court of Norway (Høgsterett) 🇳🇴 has sent a request for an advisory opinion in Case E-6/23, MH v Prosecuting Authority, on the Free Movement Directive (2004/38) (also known as the Citizenship Directive).
In essence, the referring national court wants to know whether national law is compatible with EEA law in the following circumstance: can Norway prosecute a third-country national, an Iranian national (non-EU citizen and non-national of an EFTA-EEA state), who is married to a Norwegian national (a national of an EFTA-EEA state), with an expulsion order prohibits them from entering Norway, when, on the facts of the case, the couple live in Sweden?
If Norway can impose such an expulsion order on the third country national, that would prevent the family, including the spouse and the couple’s daughter, from returning home to Norway one day ‘after’ having exercised free movement to Sweden. In effect, what Norway is trying to do is ban Norwegians from returning to Norway with their third country national spouse.
Norway has delivered the person an expulsion/exclusion order following a prior failed asylum request in years period, and following a violation of that order many years later, has imposed a one-year imprisonment on the person. That decision has been appealed, from where now it reaches the Supreme Court.
A mix of different movements at different times throughout the entire EEA can be seen in this case, including a failed attempt at seeking asylum in Norway 🇳🇴, before eventually getting refugee status in Greece 🇬🇷, and then subsequently travelled to Sweden 🇸🇪 where taking up residence, and then arrested in Norway 🇳🇴 within the first three month period under the Free Movement Directive.
Various questions arise in these proceedings: mutual trust between states, right to a family life, free movement of persons, sufficiently serious threats to the fundamental interests of society, expulsion and exclusions orders, and more.
The case is now before the EFTA Court, and will be heard later this year. You can follow the developments on the website of the EFTA Court at the following link: https://lnkd.in/eFHan8Tn
Graham Butler