The case concerned the right to be heard in immigration cases when the objection to a decision appears to be manifestly unfounded, based on the General Administrative Law Act.

The applicant, a Syrian woman, has submitted an application for family reunification with her sponsor, who acted on her behalf. The State Secretary has rejected the request, considering that the applicant has insufficiently demonstrated the relationship with the woman, thus equating a marriage and that the sponsor had insufficient income and had insufficiently substantiated with documents his exemption from the means test because he is in permanent incapacity to work. Following appeals before the Court of the Hague, the issue before the Council of State was whether the State Secretary should have heard the applicant and the sponsor in objection, in view of what they have argued and submitted in objection.

The Council of State first examined the way the State Secretary applies the hearing obligation in practice since it is provided as a legal obligation in the objection phase according to Article 7:3 of the General Administrative Law Act. However, Article 7:3 provides for a number of exhaustive reasons to waive the hearing obligation when the State Secretary deems an objection as manifestly unfounded. The Council of State looked into the way these provisions are implemented in practice.

It stated that the working method described and applied by the State Secretary appears to be in accordance with the legal framework. However, there are situations when the mere possibility that an applicant may still put forward new points of view during a hearing is not sufficient grounds to hear him. Consequently, it is up to a third country national to explain in concrete terms in objection why he cannot agree with the primary decision and if he fails to do so, the State Secretary may reasonably reject the objection as manifestly unfounded.

In general, the rule consists in the fact that the more an applicant has made efforts to obtain the necessary information and has communicated about it with the State Secretary, the more reasonable it is to invite him to a hearing. If all the circumstances to be taken into account point to a doubtful case, an applicant must be heard. The administrative court has the competence to review the reason stated in the decision to refrain from the hearing in objection when there is a complaint about this in the grounds of appeal.

The Council of State noted that the applicants have submitted in their objection further evidence and argued to be in a difficult position to provide evidence. The applicants have substantiated their special individual circumstances, such as the fact that the sponsor suffers from Parkinson's disease and that it is difficult to obtain the required official documents from Syria. The applicants expressly requested to be invited for a hearing in order to explain their situation in more details. The Council of State considered that this is a situation where it was not self-evident that the objection was manifestly unfounded, since the applicants put forward concrete circumstances that indicated a concrete and great interest to be heard. Consequently, the Council of State stated that Court of the Hague rightly included these circumstances in its judgment where it considered that the State Secretary wrongly failed to hear the applicant about his objection.