The case concerned a family reunification request submitted by an applicant from Iran who is an adult child and who wished to be reunited with his father as sponsor, who had asylum status since 2006. The State Secretary rejected the application by decision of 2 February 2021 and following appeal and referral, the State Secretary rejected again the request and the applicant appealed against.

The applicant argued that the State Secretary provided inadequate reasoning for not considering him as an adult child and considering that the applicant does not comply with the policy on young adults. The State Secretary considered the fact that the applicant worked for one year is an indication that the applicant can support himself financially and that his family relations were broken. According to the State Secretary once the family relations are broken, they cannot be restored. The applicant claimed on the contrary that because he only worked for a year and then reverted to his father, he did not make a conscious step towards independence and was unable to maintain himself effortlessly and independently.

The court of the Hague first assessed whether the young adult policy is applicable to the applicant and stated based on the hearing and other statements of the applicant that the later found the job on computers interesting in terms of content and that he applied by himself to another job after the first one. In addition, the applicant did not make it plausible that he will no longer be able to work in the future, even though this is currently being made more difficult by the depression he suffers from. The court ruled that the State Secretary correctly assessed that the actual family relationship must be regarded as broken, based on all the facts and circumstances presented and with due observance of the applicable policy and jurisprudence. The court considered that the State Secretary had good grounds to regard the applicant's year of work as a deliberate step towards independence under the given circumstances. Thus, the young adult policy was not applicable.

However, the court examined whether the State Secretary has established on good grounds that there is no more than usual dependence between the applicant and the sponsor and whether specific interest have been correctly weighed in application of Article 8 ECHR.

The court agreed with the State Secretary on the point that family reunification cases form a special category, where the assessment is simplified and does not imply an extensive weighing of interests on the basis of Article 8 of the ECHR. However, this fact does not mean that the State Secretary does not have to assess the family relationship on the basis of the measure of the more than usual dependency under Article 8 of the ECHR. It was reiterated that Article 17 of the Family Reunification Directive obliges the Member States, in the event of a rejection of an application, to take into account, inter alia, the nature and the closeness of the family relationship of the person concerned. The court considered that the factual determination and a weighing of interests cannot be seen separately. 13The court is therefore of the opinion that actually obliging the applicant to submit a new regular application for that weighing of interests on the basis of Article 8 of the ECHR is unreasonably onerous and detracts from the useful effect of the Family Reunification directive.

Consequently, the court ruled that the State Secretary should have weighed up the interests and annulled the contested decision, thus the case will be referred back for examination under Article 8 ECHR and the applicant will have to substantiate his psychological and medical issues, and the State Secretary will have to assess, his psychological complaints, their treatment and the role of the sponsor in this situation, in order to establish whether there is no more than usual dependency.