The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that the Netherlands did not breach the right to family life when it refused residence permits for five children of a Yemeni refugee born of his second and third marriages.
The man already lives in the country with one wife and their eight children.
In A.A. v. the Netherlands, published on September 8, the Fourth Section held unanimously that there was no violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to respect for private and family life.
The applicant contracted three marriages in Yemen and has 13 children: Eight with his first wife, three with his second and two with his third.
He arrived in the Netherlands in October 2018 and was granted asylum in July 2019.
The rest of the family was then in Turkey.
He applied for his first wife and all 13 children to join him.
Dutch immigration authorities told him only one marriage could be recognised and asked him to choose.
He declined to pick, insisting the application stand as filed.
Officials treated that as a choice of the first marriage, admitted that wife and their eight children and refused the other five on the grounds that polygamy was contrary to public order in the Netherlands.
He had not sought permits for the other two wives. He also declined official advice that he could divorce the second and third wives.
After losing before the District Court of The Hague and the Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, the man went to the court in Strasbourg in February 2023 to object to the Dutch decision. He contended that the specific circumstances of his case should be taken into consideration, namely that his children were living in disadvantaged circumstances in Turkey because they only held temporary residence cards, which allowed them limited access to services.
He also argued that it was impossible for the children to return to Yemen because of a real risk of ill-treatment due to their parents’ human rights activities.
He said that divorce would bring adverse consequences to his second and third wives, such as social stigma, exclusion and pressure to return to Yemen and remarry. Both women had consented to their children living with their father in the Netherlands.
The court accepted that family life existed between the father and the five children even though Dutch law does not recognise polygamy. That did not oblige the State to bring them in.
The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a Strasbourg-based legal advocacy group granted leave to intervene, had asked the judges to find that the concept of family life did not apply to polygamous marriages.
Judges pointed to a “strong European consensus” as polygamy is forbidden in every Council of Europe member state “without exception, regardless of whether it is voluntary or involves any element of coercion”.
When setting immigration policy that takes family ties into account, a state “cannot be required to give full recognition to polygamous marriages which are in conflict with their own legal order”, the court said.
According to the court, the man knew of the ban and chose to keep all three marriages, aware that the children would then face immigration obstacles.
The five children were living in Turkey with their mothers, not in Yemen, and had access to schooling and health services there. They had no ties to the Netherlands beyond their father, who could visit them.
The man’s second wife has since reached the Netherlands with her children and was granted asylum on June 24, 2025. Her own application for family reunification with them appeared to be pending, according to the judgment, though the court said that did not alter its assessment.
The court concluded that immigration control and public order outweighed the Article 8 claim.
A spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security told Courthouse News the ruling confirmed that Dutch policy fell within the discretion the ECHR allows states.
The judgment is not yet final. Either side may ask within three months for referral to the court’s 17-judge Grand Chamber, though a panel of five judges must first accept the request.
The EU Family Reunification Directive already allows member states to restrict admission of children from another marriage when the sponsor lives with one spouse, and bars the admission of a further spouse. That provision, Article 4(4) of the 2003 directive, was the legal basis for the Dutch refusal.
A.A.’s lawyers Eva Bezem and Isa van Krimpen come from Prakken d’Oliveira, an Amsterdam human rights firm. High-profile files have included suspects from left-wing militant group Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action (RaRa), Pim Fortuyn’s murderer Volkert van der Graaf, complainants in the case against Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders and ECHR asylum cases, including Salah Sheekh v. the Netherlands in 2007.
