The Migration Law Clinic will accept new cases in September 2021. The students will work on new cases from October 2021 until February 2022. 

If you have suggestions for cases or topics for the Migration Law Clinic, you can contact the Clinic coordinator (migrationlawclinic@vu.nl). See also under ‘For Clients’.

The Migration Law Clinic is currently working on the following two topics:

Scope of judicial review in detention cases under the Return Directive

The Migration Law Clinic has written an expert opinion in Joined Cases C-704/20 PPU and C-39/21 PPU before the Court of Justice of the European Union. It concerns the judicial review of detention measures imposed on the basis of the Return Directive (Directive 2008/115/EC). Under Dutch law, the first instance and second instance courts examining the appeal against such a detention measure are bound by the grounds of appeal submitted by the third country national. They are not allowed to review the lawfulness of the detention measure ex officio. As a result, a Dutch court, which is aware that a detention measure is unlawful on a particular ground, for example because there is no prospect of removal, cannot quash this measure and release the TCN, if the TCN has not raised this particular ground to argue that the detention is unlawful. The question is whether this is in conformity with EU law.

This project was supervised by Galina Cornelisse and Marcelle Reneman

Is the right to residence of third-country national parents of Dutch children under Chavez-Vilchez  of a temporary nature?

The District Court of Amsterdam has referred preliminary questions to the Court of Justice regarding the right to residence of third-country national parents of Dutch children on the basis of Article 20 on the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. In essence the court wants to know whether this right to residence should be considered to be of a temporary nature as is claimed by the Dutch Secretary of State.  This question is relevant in order to know whether such a third-country national parent can obtain a long term residence permit under Directive 2003/109/EC.

This project is supervised by Nadia Ismaili, Martijn Stronks and Isabella Leroy.

This is an overview of the cases supported by the Migration Law Clinic in the period 2013-2019:

The Migration Law expert opinions can be found here.