FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE: ECJ CURBS RIGHT TO REFUSE ENTRY TO NON-EU NATIONALS.

• Position: European Court of Justice, European Union

The case concerns two Algerian nationals, Mr Farid and Mr Bouchair, who were married to Spanish citizens and lived in Dublin in London respectively. The Spanish authorities refused to allow them visit Spain after discovering that Germany had entered them in the Schengen Information System's list of people to be refused entry. An alert had been placed on Mr Farid for having been convicted of driving without a licence and on Mr Bouchair for applying for asylum under a fake identity.

The conundrum the ECJ faced was a certain incompatibility between the 'Schengen' body of law on abolishing internal border controls and EU legislation on free movement of people. The Schengen acquis, originally a series of inter-governmental agreements, was formally integrated into the EU body of law in May 1999. Spain argued that under the Schengen rules, it was Germany's prerogative to issue a refusal-of-entry alert and other member states' duty to implement it without having to check why it was issued.

But the ECJ has taken a much more nuanced view. It firstly recognised the importance of protecting the family life of EU nationals, as enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Citing previous ECJ case-law interpreting a 1964 Directive...