issued by the Registrar of the Court  
ECHR 044 (2011)  
14.06.2011  
Failure to renew residence permit of a Somali girl who grew up  
in Denmark with her family violated her rights  
In today’s Chamber judgment in the case Osman v. Denmark (application  
no. 38058/09), which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights held,  
unanimously, that there had been:  
A violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the  
European Convention on Human Rights.  
The case concerned the refusal to renew the Danish residence permit of a Somali girl,  
who had grown up with her family in Denmark, after she spent more than two years,  
allegedly against her will, living in Kenya. The right to family reunification for young  
people of her age (15-17) was abolished while she was away.  
Principal facts  
The applicant, Sahro Osman, is a Somali national who was born in Somalia on 1  
November 1987. She now lives in Esbjerg (Denmark).  
Ms Osman lived in Somalia from 1987 to 1991 and spoke Somali, she then moved to  
Kenya, where she lived from 1991 to 1995.  
She was granted a Danish residence permit in November 1994 and subsequently moved  
to Denmark to live with her father and sister (who had been granted asylum in  
Denmark) in February 1995, when she was seven year’s old. Her mother and her three  
other siblings subsequently joined them.  
She spent her formative years in Denmark, from the age of seven to 15. She spoke  
Danish and went to school in Denmark until August 2002. All her close family live in  
Denmark.  
Her father sent her back to Kenya – allegedly against her will – in 2003, when she was  
15, where she took care of her paternal grandmother at the Hagadera refugee camp in  
north-eastern Kenya for more than two years.  
On 9 August 2005, aged 17 and therefore still a minor, she applied to be reunited with  
her family in Denmark.  
On 21 December 2006 the Danish Immigration Service found that Ms Osman’s residence  
permit had lapsed, under section 17 of the Aliens Act, because she had been absent  
from Denmark for more than 12 consecutive months. They also considered that she was  
1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month  
period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the  
Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further  
examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral  
request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.  
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for  
supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:  
www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution  
not entitled to a new residence permit under section 9, sub-section 1 (ii), of the Aliens  
Act, because, by then, it applied only to children below the age of 15. Finally, the  
Immigration Service found that no special circumstances existed allowing it to grant her  
a residence permit under section 9 c, sub-section 1, of the Aliens Act; Ms Osman had not  
seen her mother for four years, her mother had agreed to send her to Kenya, and, she  
could continue to live with her grandmother or her children.  
Section 9, subsection 1 (ii) of the Aliens Act had been amended on 1 July 2004 – after  
Ms Osman left Denmark – limiting the right to family reunification to children under 15,  
instead of under 18, to discourage the practice of sending children on “re-upbringing  
trips” for extended periods of time to be “re-educated” in line with their ethnic origins.  
The law was designed to ensure foreign minors living in Denmark spent as many of their  
formative years as possible in Denmark.  
The applicant claimed that she re-entered Denmark illegally in June 2007.  
She had reached the age of majority when the refusal to renew her residence permit  
became final on 19 January 2008, after leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was  
refused.  
She has not applied for asylum.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
Relying in particular on Article 8, Ms Osman complained about the renew to reinstate her  
residence permit.  
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 19 July 2009.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven, composed as follows:  
Nina Vajić (Croatia), President,  
Anatoly Kovler (Russia),  
Peer Lorenzen (Denmark),  
Elisabeth Steiner (Austria),  
George Nicolaou (Cyprus),  
Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia),  
Julia Laffranque (Estonia), Judges,  
and also Søren Nielsen, Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
Article 8  
The Court noted that the refusal to renew Ms Osman’s residence permit interfered with  
both her private and family life. She was still a minor when she applied to be reunited  
with her family in Denmark and, for young adults who had not yet founded a family of  
their own, their relationship with their parents and other close family members  
constituted “family life”. In addition, all the social ties between settled migrants and the  
community in which they were living constituted “private life” and the expulsion of a  
settled migrant constituted an interference with his or her right to respect for private life.  
The measure in question had a basis in domestic law and pursued the legitimate aim of  
immigration control.  
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The main issue to be determined was whether the Danish authorities were under a duty  
to renew Ms Osman’s residence permit after she had been in Kenya for more than two  
years.  
The Court observed that Ms Osman had spent her formative years in Denmark, that she  
spoke Danish, went to school in Denmark and that her close family lived in Denmark.  
She therefore had social, cultural and family ties in Denmark as well as in Kenya and  
Somalia.  
Ms Osman maintained that the Danish authorities had a duty to protect her interests and  
that it was obvious that her father’s decision to send her to Kenya was not in her best  
interests.  
The Court reiterated that, for a settled migrant, like Ms Osman, who had lawfully spent  
all or the major part of his or her childhood and youth in a host country, very serious  
reasons were required to justify expulsion. Ms Osman was not expelled for having  
committed a crime, but because her residence permit had expired.  
The Court also noted that, although the law in question was designed to discourage  
parents from sending their children to their countries of origin to be “re-educated” in a  
manner their parents considered more consistent with their ethnic origins, the children’s  
right to respect for private and family life could not be ignored.  
The applicant maintained that she had been obliged to leave Denmark to take care of  
her grandmother for more than two years; that her stay there was involuntary; that she  
had no means to leave the camp; and, that her father’s decision to send her to Kenya  
had not been in her best interests.  
Those arguments were disregarded by the authorities with reference to the fact that her  
parents had custody of her at the relevant time. The Court agreed that the exercise of  
parental rights constituted a fundamental element of family life, and that the care and  
upbringing of children normally and necessarily required that the parents decide where  
the child should live and also imposed, or authorised others to impose, various  
restrictions on the child’s liberty. Nevertheless, in respecting parental rights, the  
authorities could not ignore the child’s interests, including her or his right to respect for  
private and family life.  
The applicant’s point of view was also disregarded by, for example, the Immigration  
Service with reference to the fact that she had not seen her mother for four years. In the  
Court’s view, the fact that Ms Osman’s mother did not visit her in Kenya, or that they  
apparently had very limited contact for four years, could be explained by various factors,  
including practical and financial constraints, and could hardly lead to the conclusion that  
they did not wish to maintain or strengthen family contact.  
In May 2003, when Ms Osman was 15 and sent to Kenya, even if section 17 of the Aliens  
Act set out that her residence permit might lapse after 12 consecutive months abroad,  
she could still apply for a residence permit in Denmark under Section 9, subsection 1(ii)  
of the Aliens Act. That law was amended, however, when she was still in Kenya, limiting  
the right to family reunification to children under 15 instead of those under 18. The  
Court did not question the amended legislation as such, but noted that Ms Osman and  
her parents could not have foreseen that amendment when she was sent to Kenya or at  
the time when the 12 month lime-limit expired.  
The Court therefore found that there had been a violation of Article 8, because Ms  
Osman’s interests had not been taken into account in the authorities’ refusal to renew  
her Danish residence permit and a fair balance had not been struck between her  
interests and the State’s interest in controlling immigration.  
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Other articles  
The Court declared Ms Osman’s other complaints inadmissible  
Article 41  
Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court held that Denmark was  
to pay the applicant 15,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non pecuniary damage and EUR  
6,000 in respect of costs and expenses.  
The judgment is available only in English.  
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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of  
Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European  
Convention on Human Rights.  
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