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THE Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 came into force in the United Kingdom on 30th April 2006; it is without a doubt one of the highly acclaimed rights for anyone who is an EEA National residing or intending to reside in the United Kingdom. It confers more flexible rights as against the domestic Immigration Rules on the nationals of the 27 member states of the European Union.

To invoke such rights, a national of one of the 27 member states most move from their country of habitual residence to another member state, hence, it must be understood from the beginning that a British National, though, an EEA National will not be able to enjoy such rights in the United Kingdom, however, if such national decide to move from the United Kingdom to settle down in any of the other 26 Member States, then he can invoke his rights as an EEA National subject to other immigration controls that may be imposed by the host member state.

It is now well established that the United Kingdom has its own vigorously enforced immigration rules and the rules are becoming even tighter. A question that is often asked is that “Can the UK domestic Immigration Law supersede the EEC Regulations?” Well, in theory it cannot, and the reasons for this is because Regulations are directly binding on the member states to whom it is addressed and individual can rely on such direct effect of the Regulations because it is aimed to confer rights on individuals within a member state. Anyone affected can take their cases to the highest court in the UK and if not fully satisfied has the right to go even further by taking their case to the ECJ (European Court of Justice).

In human right cases individual can take their case to ECHR (European Court of Human Rights). Details of these Courts and procedure can be found on relevant web-sites. In this article I will like to concentrate on the rights of EEA National Dependants and what may or may not happen when an application is submitted to the Home Office for residence card. First and foremost, an EEA National has the right to reside in the United Kingdom and to have his or her family install with him or her in the United Kingdom and nothing more or less, however, such rights are again qualified in the sense that you need to be active by being capable of getting a job to support yourself, or being self –employed, student or job seeker or be a person who is self-sufficient. However, an EEA national residing in the United Kingdom will not cease to be treated as such if he is temporarily unable to work as the result of an illness or accident or involuntary unemployed after having been employed in the UK provided he registers as a jobseeker and has been employed for one year but cannot be out of job for more than 6 months without providing the evidence that he is seeking employment. As can be seen already, there are domestic rules governing the EEA Nationals, even within the rights conferred by the regulations.

Now then, the issue of family is subject to the EEA National being able to satisfy the rules above and more, it is, then he can be said that he has the rights to have his family install with himself. Who then are the Family members of an EEA ational? This is the big question, especially for us Africans where our family members may extend to our next door neighbour our pastors and our other relatives who have no biological lineage with us. However, the law is clear and unambiguous in this area. It states that for the purposes of these regulations the following persons shall be treated as the family members of another person: His spouse or (civil partner) – Well civil partnership is still not widely accepted in African Countries. Direct descendants of his, and his spouse who are under the age of 21 and dependants of his, or his spouse. Dependent direct relatives in his ascending line or that of his spouse. Let us restrict ourselves to the above definition and then see how this works in practice. It might be easier if we use an imaginary person, let us call him Lukeman Okuadio (LO) for short. LO left Nigeria for Germany some 15 years ago, he eventually got married to a German citizen through whom he acquired his German citizenship. German is part of the member states of the EEC, hence LO is an EEA National.

His last job in Germany was with Mercedes Car Manufactures who trained him to the highest hence he is well qualified in his field. He then decided to move to the United Kingdom in 2004. He has secured a job with the Ford Company and he is doing very well, he has been issued with a residence card and has no problem at all in the United Kingdom. Realising his enviable immigration position, LO became greedy, he decided to profit from his status because he has been approached by Uche, James and David to assist them with their immigration status in the United Kingdom, however, none of them is related to LO, not even remotely, he is very much aware of the requirements to be met.

Uche, James and David who are all illegal entrants to the United Kingdom then decided to pay someone to report their passports missing, but this time around they all use the surname of Okuadio. The next thing is to complete the necessary application forms and mail it to the Home Office as the dependants of LO with false date of birth making them much younger than they were. No problem, 6 weeks later they all got a reply from the Home Office indicating that they are all entitled to work. LO has charged them £3500 each. That is it, the job is done!! But is this correct? After 5 months the Home Office sends out fact finding questionnaires to all of them, furthermore, DNA were ordered. This is the point of no return, as it is impossible for them to complete such questionnaire or indeed to go through a DNA knowing fully well that they could not possibly be related to LO. Well, I do not want to say much about what happened next, but my advice is that, there are more than 21 different ways of residing legally in the United Kingdom.

The law relating to Immigration gives you the opportunity to reside legally here, though strictly applied, but then, can you blame the United Kingdom Government? The answer is NO!, they have the right to control their borders, and control does not mean exclusion. In all works of life, there are rules that we need to follow and unless one is prepared to follow such rules problems are bound to occur. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate the difficulties being faced back home, lack of water, and lack of electricity, roads, and employment and so on and so on. Notwithstanding, home is home, and if you then decide that you want to explore a brighter opportunity then let us do it right. Just think of it, what would happen if you already have 2 children in the United Kingdom and you are forced to leave or you are to be removed due to your own illegality, who suffers the most?. Let us think before spending the hard earned money, let us think of our Children, and above all, let us think that we can contact a Lawyer who are experts in matters relating to law and who may be able to guide us through.

Every letter of the immigration law requires expert interpretation; please do not think that because you can read and write, you can deal with your own immigration matters, it is complex and take years to understand. I wish best of luck out there and should you find yourself in the above situation, please contact a Lawyer immediately and before it is too late.

Dr. David Akin-Samuels (July 2008)

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