Published on 21 March 2022

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 4470/21 Wilder Liborio MARTINEZ ALVARADO against the Netherlands lodged on 6 January 2021 communicated on 4 March 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The applicant is a Peruvian national born in 1978. He has a mental disability and is incapable of taking care of himself. His parents, who had always taken care of him, died in 2010 and 2014. The applicant’s brother, who lives in Peru, is a professional football player and is not able to provide the necessary care.

The applicant’s four adult sisters have legal stay in the Netherlands. After his father died in 2014 one of his sisters came to take care of the applicant and took him to the Netherlands in January 2015, where he has been staying ever since. The Netherlands authorities provided him with a long-term visa for special circumstances.

In March 2017 the applicant applied for a residence permit for the purpose of exercising family life with his sisters in the Netherlands. The Deputy Minister of Justice and Security refused the application, finding that the existence of “more than the normal emotional ties” between the adult siblings had not been established. Although the Regional Court of The Hague allowed an administrative appeal, this judgment was, upon a further appeal lodged by the Deputy Minister, overturned by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State. It held that the Deputy Minister had been allowed – inter alia in the light of the Court’s judgment in Senchishak v. Finland , no. 5049/12, 18 November 2014 – to attribute considerable weight to the fact that it had been insufficiently established that the applicant was unable to get support from others in Peru.

The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the authorities failed to recognise family life within the meaning of that provision between him and his sisters and to grant him a residence permit to stay with them in the Netherlands.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Is there, given the specific circumstances of the case, “family life” within the meaning of Article 8 of the Convention between the applicant and his adult sisters?

In particular, has the applicant demonstrated that there are “additional elements of dependence” ( see Slivenko v. Latvia [GC], no. 48321/99, § 97, ECHR 2003 ‑ X, and Senchishak v. Finland , no. 5049/12, 18 November 2014, §§ 55-57) between him and his sisters?

When examining that question, did the competent authorities and the domestic courts take sufficiently into account all relevant elements?