THE SUPREME Court’s decision not to grant a domestic worker long-term residency will lead to ‘chaos’ and ‘gridlock’ in the courts, immigrant support group KISA warned yesterday.
KISA officials predicted the highest court’s latest ruling on migrants would open the floodgates for 8,000 new cases, leading to absolute chaos in the courts, as well as expose the state to charges of violating EU laws.
Last Monday, the full bench (12 judges) of the Supreme Court gave its final verdict in Motilla vs Republic of Cyprus. The Supreme Court had to decide whether a domestic worker who had completed five uninterrupted years of legal residency in Cyprus was entitled to a long-term residency permit as set out by EU Directive 2003/109/EC. The permit effectively grants non-EU nationals who are long-term residents of the EU similar rights to EU citizens, including free movement across the 27-member bloc.
The permit has to be renewed every five years, though the second application procedure is much easier than the first.
The appeal was rejected by a majority (eight judges) on the grounds that domestic workers and other such migrants did not come to Cyprus with the ‘expectation’ they would receive long-term residency.
The Court ruled that the EU directive only applied where migrants stayed in Cyprus under conditions that created good reasons to expect long-term residency, for example, where the state did not intervene in any way to prevent their uninterrupted and permanent stay.
It did not apply in the case of students, seasonal workers or au pair girls. Domestic workers also were not eligible because they were considered ‘temporarily resident’ in Cyprus as part of the government’s long-standing policy on temporary work and stay. No ‘expectation of permanent residence’ was created through this policy, on the contrary, their stay was ‘formally limited’, said the court.
In a statement released yesterday, KISA expressed its “grave concern” about the decision, arguing it would exclude all migrant workers from long-term residency. “With the blessings of the Supreme Court, the overwhelming majority of migrants cannot benefit from the provisions of the Directive as almost all residence permits are formally limited,” it said.
KISA asked why the Supreme Court saw fit to give its own interpretation of the Directive when the European Court of Justice was solely competent to interpret Community law. It had an obligation to seek clarification from the European Court instead of interpreting EU law itself “in a negative manner and decisively for the rights of thousands of third-country nationals who have submitted or will submit applications for acquiring long-term status”.
The NGO said it had no choice but to “denounce the Republic of Cyprus and its agencies, including the Supreme Court, to the European Commission for violation of the Community law”. It also called on all migrants, trade unions and organised groups to mobilise against this policy.
One KISA official noted that the decision would allow the state to reject all long-term residents’ applications. As a result, migrant applicants would have no choice but to appeal these decisions, giving them a legal footing to remain in the country until the appeals are heard or until the European Court rules on the legality of the government’s policy.
“We will write to the Commission [today], it will likely take a year and a half for the case to be heard, until that time the 8,000 migrants seeking long-term residence will have no choice but to appeal to the Supreme Court as a delaying tactic until the European Court rules on this,” said the official.
KISA warned that the decision would have a chain reaction on migration. The group predicted migrants without papers and asylum applications would increase as well as “the super-exploitation of the affected migrants by the various rings and ‘specialists’”.
The Interior Ministry implemented the law on long-term residents last November, almost two years after it came into force across the bloc. At the time, non-governmental organisations accused the government of delaying tactics. Lawyers and NGOs charged the authorities with conducting a ‘cleansing campaign’ to get rid of third country nationals eligible for long-term status, including families that had been in Cyprus for over a decade.
In November 2006, their fears were confirmed in a damning report by the Ombudswoman against the Migration Department. In her report, Iliana Nicolaou concluded there was an apparent “effort to expel” foreigners who were eligible for long-term residency benefits. She accused the state of practices that were
“incompatible with the rule of law” to which EU member states are bound.
Eventually, under threat of EU fines, the state opened a new department where applications could be submitted.
