Complications in Family Reunification

Authors

• Anna-Maria Tapaninen University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1484-0775

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.127519

Abstract

Various international conventions define and secure the right to family, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) where the family is seen as ‘the natural and fundamental group unit of society’. Even more relevant to the current discussion is Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which states that ‘everyone has the right to respect for his private and family right, his home and his correspondence’ and that any grounds for legitimate interference must be qualified by the standards of ‘a democratic society’. Article 8 also has juridical consequences when family life is being evaluated as valid and genuine, and when legitimate interferences in it are being justified in courts of law. Human rights, like the right to family, are extremely complicated issues in the context of global movements of people. Asylum and family reunification are presently the most important admission channels to Europe for aliens. In many European countries, more than half the applications for residence permits are based on family ties. In Finland these amounted to 42 per cent of all applications in 2009, while employment-based immigration clearly decreased due to the economic  recession. The number of asylum-seekers increased, too, and then started to decline. Family migration is seen as a particularly complicated category. But this is not only because of growing numbers but also because of continuous, increasingly restrictive amendments in legislation that can be seen as a response to it.