A, the applicant, was rejected the application for family reunification by decision of 4 July 2019, because the application was not submitted within the 3 months’ time limit and the applicant did not met the subsistence requirement. The Administrative Court dismissed the appeal. B, the gatherer, was granted refugee status in 2017.

The Supreme Administrative Court reiterated that the subsistence requirement does not apply to families formed before the family sponsor came to Finland if the application for a residence permit has been submitted within three months of the family reunifier being notified of the asylum decision. It was underlined that there is an exception, precisely that a secure means of subsistence should not have been required either if the submission of the application after the time-limit was objectively excusable due to special circumstances.

In the present case, it was found that the application for family reunification had been submitted almost a year after the 3 months deadline and the reason for the delay was the closure of the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia. However, the applicant should have filled an application for a residence permit as soon as the obstacle had been removed, which he had not done. Consequently, his situation does not reveal that there were special circumstances to objectively justify the late submission of the application.

The Supreme Administrative Court mentioned the CJEU case Case C-380/17 K and B v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie, and the ECtHR cases Haydarie and Others v. The Netherlands (judgment of 20 October 2005) and Konstatinov v. The Netherlands (judgment of 26 April 2007). It also mentioned the Mugenzi v. France (judgment of 10 July 2014, paragraph 54) and Tanda-Muzinga v. France (judgment of 10 July 2014, paragraph 75), where the ECtHR held that that the granting of refugee status has been regarded as evidence of the vulnerability of those involved. In this context, the Court has pointed out, inter alia with reference to the Family Reunification Directive, that there is a consensus internationally and in Europe that family reunification of refugees should be subject to more favorable conditions than family reunification of other aliens.

Because the subsistence condition was not met for the applicant and no exceptionally compelling reasons referred to in section 39 (1) of the Aliens Act had been presented in the case, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the appeal and confirmed the negative decision.