Last week (15 September 2022), the Court of Justice delivered the judgment on the case No C-22/21, SRS, AA v. Minister for Justice and Equality.
In the dispute in the main proceeding, the Irish Supreme Court was asked to interpret the concept of “other family member who is a member of the household of the Union citizen” for the purposes of Art 3(2)(a) of Directive No 2004/38, in order to decide whether it is applicable among first cousins: one being an EU citizen having exercised his freedom of movement and residence, and the other being a third-country national who lives in the same residence of the former.
Referred for a preliminary ruling on the matter, the Court of Justice stated that “the concept of ‘any other family members who are members of the household of the Union citizen having the primary right of residence’ …refers to persons who have a relationship of dependence with that citizen, based on close and stable personal ties, forged within the same household, in the context of a shared domestic life going beyond a mere temporary cohabitation entered into for reasons of pure convenience.”
This is not the first time the Court of Justice was requested to interpret the concept of “other family member” mentioned in Directive No 2004/38: for its decision on a case regarding a child in permanent legal guardianship under the Algerian kafala system (case No C-129/18), the readers of RDIPP may refer to:
Peraro, 2019, No 2, 319 ff.
Moreover, on the broader topic of the protection of family status in EU law, see, in our Book Series:
Tomasi, Book No 69.