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Court of Appeal rejects challenge to Home Office interpretation of EU law “extended family member” rules

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In a judgment handed down on Friday, Begum v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] EWCA Civ 1878, the Court of Appeal has decided that a third country national applicant cannot qualify as an extended family member under EU law if their sponsor only became an EU citizen after the applicant left their home country for the UK. The Appellant, a national of Bangladesh who had been dependent on her sponsor throughout her time in Bangladesh and since arriving in the UK, argued that it was sufficient that her sponsor was an EU national by the time she made an application for extended family member status in the UK. In dismissing the appeal, the Court accepted SSHD’s argument that Directive 2004/38/EC required dependence on an EU citizen at the time the third country national moved to the UK, and that without an EU national with free movement rights at the crucial point of movement of the third country national to the UK, there was nothing on which any derivative family member right could bite. The appeal was live-streamed and can be viewed here. Julia Smyth represented the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

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