Abstract
The applicant, Deo Tanda-Muzinga, is a Congolese national who was born in 1970 and lives in Vénissieux (Frnace). The applicant obtained refugee status and submitted application for family reunification in June 2007 to be able to live with his children, who were then in Cameroon. Although the principle of family reunification had been recognized in his case, the consular authorities refused to issue visas for his children on account of difficulties in establishing the children's civil registration status.
As to Mr Tanda-Muzinga, having received no news following his application for visas, he lodged an appeal against the consular authorities' implicit refusal; the Appeals Board did not respond. In June 2008 he lodged an urgent application before the Conseil d'État, and it was on this occasion that he learned that the Minister of Immigration had contested the birth certificates of two of his children, Benjamin and Michelle. In the meantime, the applicant had received a letter informing him that OFPRA had confirmed his family situation to the visa authorities. On a suggestion allegedly made by the “public rapporteur” (rapporteur public) at the hearing before the Conseil d'État on the merits of the case, the applicant's wife brought proceedings before the Yaoundé tribunal de grande instance seeking a judicial rectification of the birth certificate of their daughter Michelle. Having had his application dismissed by the Conseil d'État in July 2009, with the precision that the fraudulent nature of at least one of the documents submitted was such as to entail the refusal of all of the requested visas, the applicant submitted a second request for family reunification, which was rejected without explanation in April 2010. He applied to the Appeals Board, which did not reply. After the application had been communicated to the French Government by the European Court of Human Rights on 21 September 2010, Mr Tanda-Muzinga obtained an order from the urgent applications judge, holding that the “criterion of urgency” had been met, having regard to the length of time the family had been separated, and requested that his application be re-examined. On 19 November 2010 the lawyer for HCR Cameroon forwarded the judgment re-issuing Michelle's birth certificate – it had been possible to authenticate Benjamin's birth certificate following new checks in 2010 – and the consular authorities issued the visas one month later.
Country of Decision
Council of Europe
Court Name
CoE: European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR]
Case Number
Application no. 2260/10
Date of Decision
10/07/2014
Keywords
Family Reunification
Refugee Protection