The handling of requests for family reunification from cousin-spouses by the Danish Immigration authority has been lacking. The authority will change its current procedure after courts have overturned the authority's rejections in eight out of nine cases for spouses from Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq, among others, reports Politiken newspaper.
The authority is currently facing harsh criticism for not giving proper guidance to those seeking family reunification.
Changing the procedure means that authorities will take more time to interview the applicants in order to better decide whether it's a forced marriage. Until now cousin couples seeking family reunification in Denmark were almost certain to be denied, since according to the law cousin marriages are assumed to be forced marriages.
The disputed 'assumption regulations' was introduced in 2004 and designed all cousin marriages as forced marriages unless there were special grounds to the contrary.
the number of rejections of family reunification for reasons of forced marriage exploded from 7 in 2004 to 95 in 2007.
Source: DR (Danish)
See also: Denmark: Cousin-marriages not necessarily coerced
The authority is currently facing harsh criticism for not giving proper guidance to those seeking family reunification.
Changing the procedure means that authorities will take more time to interview the applicants in order to better decide whether it's a forced marriage. Until now cousin couples seeking family reunification in Denmark were almost certain to be denied, since according to the law cousin marriages are assumed to be forced marriages.
The disputed 'assumption regulations' was introduced in 2004 and designed all cousin marriages as forced marriages unless there were special grounds to the contrary.
the number of rejections of family reunification for reasons of forced marriage exploded from 7 in 2004 to 95 in 2007.
Source: DR (Danish)
See also: Denmark: Cousin-marriages not necessarily coerced
