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The Supreme softens the integration requirement to obtain Spanish nationality for migrant women without training

2022-01-18T17:18:31.760Z


The court grants nationality to a Moroccan woman who failed the examination of political and social knowledge because she did not have access to education


Queue to access an immigration office in Barcelona in July 2020.Albert Garcia

ZB, born in Morocco 47 years ago, has had a residence permit in Spain since June 2000. In 2012, together with her husband, she applied for Spanish nationality by residence. But while he was granted it, ZB was denied for failing the test on political and sociocultural knowledge that migrants who aspire to obtain nationality must submit to demonstrate their integration into Spanish society. The woman appealed that decision alleging that she could not pass the exam because in her country she did not have access to education due to her status as a woman, for which she asked that other factors be taken into account to assess her integration. The National Court rejected her appeal, but the Supreme Court has now agreed with her and her case opens the door to other women with a similar situation:The integration requirement, warns the Supreme Court, must be softened in the case of women from countries where they are discriminated against in access to education or social relations.

The Contentious Chamber bases its decision on the organic law of Equality between Men and Women, of 2007, which considers that migrant women are a group of special vulnerability. From there, the magistrates have interpreted that their requests for nationality must be given special attention and that the Administration, when examining the case, must leave a reasoned record of the personal circumstances of the applicant. “It cannot be considered that the origin of discriminatory sociocultural environments of migrant women can serve to relax the requirement of integration into Spanish society for the granting of nationality by residence;but yes, that integration cannot ignore that origin of discriminatory socio-cultural context environments and accommodate the legal requirement to such circumstances, ”says the sentence, of which Judge Wenceslao Olea has been rapporteur.

ZB was examined before a judge of the Manresa Civil Registry in April 2015. But he did not pass the test and the Ministry of Justice denied him nationality. This decision was later confirmed by the National High Court, which, after examining the file, stated that the woman was ignorant of "fundamental aspects of Spain and its society (fundamentally unaware of political, geographical and cultural data on Spain)", and concluded that such ignorance was due to their lack of involvement in social and cultural relations, as well as with the laws, institutions, customs and ways of life” of Spanish society.

The woman appealed to the Supreme Court and her lawyer warned that the rejection of her nationality "would perpetuate the discrimination" she had suffered since her childhood for not having had basic training due to her status as a woman. The Supreme recalls in its ruling that the court's own jurisprudence has been establishing a weighting when assessing the requirements established by the Civil Code to obtain nationality, including demonstrating a "sufficient degree of integration into Spanish society." "In relation to said requirement, the personal circumstances of the applicant must be taken into account without objective criteria being established on said integration," the court notes. The magistrates consider it "logical" that when the applicant is a migrant woman, "especially,of a certain origin from countries in which the education of women is conditioned to social isolationism”, article 14 of the equality law should be applied, which establishes the general criteria for action by public authorities. And, among them, the sixth section of this norm requires that “the unique difficulties in which women from groups of special vulnerability find themselves”, among which it includes migrant women, be taken into consideration.The sixth section of this rule requires that “the unique difficulties encountered by women from groups of special vulnerability” be taken into consideration, including migrant women.The sixth section of this rule requires that “the unique difficulties encountered by women from groups of special vulnerability” be taken into consideration, including migrant women.

The Supreme Court warns that the fact that this circumstance is assessed cannot be interpreted as meaning that these women do not have to prove that they are integrated into Spanish society, but rather that, in order to examine that integration, the Administration has to carry out a "singular assessment", which, as established by the high court's own jurisprudence, advises accommodating "the level of demand in terms of knowledge of the language and of Spanish institutions depending on the degree of instruction of the interested party and the other circumstances that concur in it" .

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-01-18

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