Published on 15 April 2024
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 22819/23
Mehmet Ali BEKIK
against Georgia
lodged on 27 May 2023
communicated on 28 March 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the refusal by the Georgian authorities of the applicant’s application for a permanent residence permit. In particular, the applicant is a Turkish national who entered Georgia in 2010 and was granted one-year temporary residence permit, which was subsequently extended twice until 11 June 2017. In 2014 the applicant married to a Georgian woman with whom he had two children, born in 2013 and 2019. They both have the Georgian nationality.
On 7 October 2016 the applicant applied for a permanent residence permit. The request was refused on the basis that the applicant represented a threat to national security. The administrative decision was subsequently upheld by the domestic courts, which relied in their reasoning on a letter from the State Security Service of Georgia, which simply stated that the applicant was a threat to national security. The letter did not contain any details pertaining to the national security considerations.
The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the decision refusing his residence permit violated his right to respect for private and/or family life, as it deprived him of any legal basis to remain in Georgia. Furthermore, he has not been informed of the alleged facts of the case which led to the conclusion that he posed a threat to national security and hence, was deprived of a possibility to refute the allegations.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been an interference with the applicant’ s right to respect for his private and/or family life, within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention (see Gaspar v. Russia, no. 23038/15, 12 June 2018)? If so, was that interference in accordance with the law and necessary in terms of Article 8 § 2? In particular, were the relevant domestic proceedings attended by sufficient procedural guarantees?