Dutch-Moroccan loses deportation lawsuit against Netherlands in human rights court

Farid Loukili, a Moroccan national who lived in the Netherlands since he was three years old, has lost a case against his deportation for drug-related offenses at the European Court of Human Rights.

The case dates back to 2017 when Loukili claimed that a decision to revoke his residency permit and ban him from returning to the country was disproportionate, and violated his right to family life, as protected by the European Convention of Human Rights because it would separate him from his children.

The Moroccan man, who was found guilty of many drug-related offenses, was informed by the Dutch government in 2017 that his residency card would be revoked and that he would be prohibited from entering the country for ten years, according to information provided by Dutch News media.

“The Deputy Minister and the domestic courts had insufficiently taken into account his and his children’s interests and had failed to recognize that their interests outweighed the public interest. In particular, the applicant submitted that the active, frequent, and close involvement he had had (including while detained) and continued to have in his children’s lives would effectively cease if he were to be expelled to Morocco,” reads the case document.

His ex-girlfriend did not have the financial means to visit him regularly in Morocco, and it could not be expected of her and the children to give up their lives in the Netherlands and settle in a country in which they did not have the nationality and with which they had no ties, it further stated.

The Dutch government emphasized that he spent the majority of his sons’ childhood in custody and never even acknowledged the paternity of his oldest son. Both sons are under the sole custody of Loukili’s ex-girlfriend.

In his lawsuit, Loukili claimed that the revocation of his residence permit prevented him from working in the Netherlands, that he had no further criminal convictions, and that he had no ties to Morocco other than a three-week vacation in 2016, which is why he believed that he shouldn’t be deported.