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In its Judgment of 25th October 2007 the Court of Appeal held that parents with third country national status cannot rely on EC law to claim a right of residence in the UK on the basis that they have a child who is a national of a Member State and a citizen with EU and who can only exercise his right to reside within the EU if he is supported by a parent.
A previous ECJ decision, C-200/02 Chen, held that the UK had to grant a residence to Mrs Chen, a Chinese mother who gave birth to a baby girl in Northern Ireland, on the grounds that the child had acquired Irish nationality and could only exercise her right under Article 18 of the EC Treaty to reside in another Member State if she was with her self sufficient mother. The Court distinguished the case of Chen on the basis that the Appellants in Mouloungui, Liu, Wang & Ahmed v SSHD could only become self-sufficient if they had access to the UK labour market whereas Mrs Chen was able to fulfil the self-sufficiency requirement without access to the UK employment market.
Christopher Vajda was instructed by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the Secretary of State for the Home Department.