According to the ECtHR press release of 23 June 2026:

“The case concerns the national authorities' failure to take a decision on an application for family reunification lodged by a Burundian national who has been granted refugee status in Greece.

The applicant submits that he is unable to produce the supporting documents required by Greek legislation.

Relying on Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), the applicant complains that the Greek authorities asked him, without considering any alternatives, to provide documents that he could not obtain in order to benefit from family reunification. He contends that this has breached his right to respect for his family life, and that he has been discriminated against on the ground of the status of his family members (asylum-seekers in another country) in the exercise of that right.

Relying on Article 13, he also alleges that there was no effective remedy available to him in respect of his complaint under Articles 8 and 14.

The court found a violation of article 8 and a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 8.”

The court noted that the case concerned a prolonged failure of the national authorities to take a decision on the applicant's request for family reunification for more than five years. The applicant was recognised as a refugee in Greece, but he was unable to submit the supporting documents required by the Greek law. The court assessed the complaints under Article 8 and examined whether Greece complied with its positive obligations. It reiterated the principle and standards established in the case of BF and Others v Switzerland (no 13258/18, 4 July 2023) and examined whether the Greek authorities, by refraining for a prolonged period from ruling on the applicant's request for family reunification, have struck a fair balance, in accordance with their margin of appreciation, between his interest in being reunited with his family members and the interests of the respondent State.

From the outset, the court found that the Asylum Service did not issue a decision rejecting the applicant's request for family reunification but refrained for a period of over five years to rule on it, on the sole ground that the applicant did not provide the supporting documents.

The court cited also the EU law, in particular the Family Reunification Directive and the CJEU judgments of E. v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie (NL) (C‑635/17, 13 March 2019) and X,Y, A, B v Belgian State (C‑1/23 PPU, 18 April 2023).

The court underlined that both national laws, in particular Article 14(1)(b) of Decree No 131/2006 and Article 11(2) of the Family Reunification Directive provide that, when a refugee cannot submit official supporting documents attesting family ties between him/her and the persons concerned by his/her application, that Member State must consider other evidence of the existence of those ties. In addition, a decision to reject the application for family reunification cannot be based solely on the absence of supporting documents.

When applying these provisions to the present case, the court noted that the applicant did provide the Asylum Service with a family status certificate conforming to the standards of his country of origin, duly apostilled in accordance with the provisions of the Hague Convention, and officially translated into Greek. It was undisputed between the parties that the family status certificate constituted a pre-printed public document, as evidenced by another certificate from the same country (Burundi) that the applicant also submitted. Therefore, the fact that the Asylum Service refused to consider the family status certificate submitted by the applicant and requested him to produce either a new, complete family status certificate or other documents, namely the birth certificates of all his family members and his marriage certificate, the Asylum Service, demonstrated a clear lack of flexibility. The court further found that this lack of flexibility was unjustified. The applicant was interviewed twice by the Asylum Service, and he fulfilled his duty to cooperate because he provided explanations for why he was unable to submit not only new supporting documents attesting to family ties, but also, and above all, travel documents for his family members. However, the court noted that the Asylum Service did not even attempt to verify whether the applicant's explanations were plausible in view of relevant and updated country information both in the applicant's country of origin (Burundi) and in the country where his family members were residing as asylum seekers (South Africa). The court also found that the Asylum Service did not take into account the particular difficulties invoked by the applicant on the fact that his family members did not hold travel documents, but only temporary residence permits in South Africa, renewed every six months, but which, due to the workload of the respective authorities in South Africa, expired and had not yet been renewed.

The court affirmed that the Asylum Service, by insisting in the applicant's obligation to provide the supporting documents required by law, and by its prolonged delay to rule on the application for family reunification, failed to conduct an individualised, balanced, and reasonable assessment by taking into account all relevant factors. Specifically, the court affirmed that the Asylum Service failed to assess in an individual and reasoned manner whether the applicant's failure to submit the supporting documents was justified by objective circumstances. In addition, the court considered that the Asylum Service failed to provide the applicant with alternative solutions to compensate for the lack of the required supporting documents, or to consider, with regard to travel documents, the solutions proposed by the applicant. It recalled, by citing BF and other v Switzerland, that when the applicants were recognised refugees in the respondent State, in certain cases, the arrival of the applicants' family members in that State may constitute the only means of resuming family life. The court emphasised that the Asylum Service failed to consider the interests of the applicant's minor children. 

The court also noted that the applicant has been separated from his family, in particular his two minor children, for a prolonged period of time, due to the failure of the competent authority to decide on the application for family reunification, which was pending for more than five years, and referred to the provisions of Article 14 § 5 of Decree No. 131/2006 and 5(5) of Directive 2003/86/EC. It noted too the absence of an effective remedy in the domestic legislation, capable of redressing the situation, and that the Government was unable to provide an explanation for the situation. Against this background, the court found both a violation of Article 8 alone and of Article 8 jointly with Article 13 of the Convention. The court concluded that the Greek authorities failed to strike a fair balance, within their margin of appreciation, between the applicant's interest in being reunited with his family members and the State's interests. This was because the decision-making process before the Asylum Service lacked flexibility, speed and effectiveness to ensure that the applicant can enjoy his right to respect for family life. It found that the Government did not demonstrate that the applicant had available an effective remedy to complain against the competent authority's failure to decide on his application for family reunification.