On 25 June 2021 the Meijers Committee presented its newest publication about public policy restrictions in EU free movement and migration law to Corinna Wissels, state council (staatsraad) at the Dutch Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State (Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State). The Meijers Committee also invited a panel of experts to discuss the publication: Dennis Bode, judge at the district court of Amsterdam and president of the court’s Aliens Chamber (Vreemdelingenkamer); Julien Luscuere, Dutch migration law attorney and president of the specialist association for migration law attorneys (SVMA); Tristan Wibault, Belgian migration law attorney, coordinator for Belgium at the European Legal Network on Asylum (ELENA); and Kathrin Hamenstaedt, lecturer in law, Brunel University London, PhD from Maastricht University on the margins of discretion in European expulsion cases. You can watch the book presentation and seminar here.

The purpose of this publication is to provide a systemic reading of EU law and CJEU case law in order to identify common standards and principles with regard to the use of public policy restrictions in EU migration law. We firstly submit that, despite all the existing differences, common standards and principles can be distilled from EU law as it stands. In identifying these principles, we aim to emphasize convergences in the applicable legal standards under EU law, rather than to highlight the differences. Secondly, we submit that these common standards and principles amount to concrete obligations for national authorities, with a clear added value to the assessment under Article 8 ECHR. These standards and principles should be leading all practices of decision-making within the scope of EU law. The current practices, where Article 8 ECHR assessments are predominant, incorrectly disregard EU law standards, which comes at the detriment of the fundamental rights of migrants.

The book is available here.

You can watch the presentation of the book here: