In the Czech Republic, a court upheld the deportation of a Russian woman who married a Czech man over the phone
On August 7, a Czech court upheld the authorities’ decision to deport a Russian citizen who had married a Czech citizen remotely over the phone and subsequently traveled to be with him. The court found no grounds to overturn the decision to deport her.
The wedding between a woman from Ingushetia (Russian Federation) and a Czech citizen took place in an unusual manner. The marriage was contracted over the phone, which is a permissible method under Islamic law.
After the wedding, the woman traveled to the Czech Republic, according to her, by minibus from Russia. She stated that women are oppressed in Ingushetia and that she had received death threats there.
Upon arriving in Prague, she tore up her documents and took no steps to legalize her stay. Eventually, she filed an asylum application, but her request was denied, and the authorities decided to deport her, stating that if she feared for her life in Ingushetia, nothing prevented her from living in another part of Russia.
The woman defended herself by pointing out that her husband is a citizen of the Czech Republic and that, therefore, she meets the conditions under which the authorities could cancel her deportation. However, at that point, the security services intervened, claiming that the woman had been in contact with terrorists and could pose a threat to national security.
The authorities added that she could hardly expect to be granted the right to reside in the country, since she had begun a relationship with her husband only after entering the Czech Republic illegally.
The woman defended herself in court, but to no avail. “The woman has not been living in the Czech Republic for long; she is young and healthy. She met her husband in Russia, and there is nothing preventing him from temporarily traveling there to join her,” the Supreme Administrative Court advised her.
The Russian woman tried to change the situation by filing a complaint with the Constitutional Court, arguing that she had since given birth to a daughter and that her deportation would constitute a serious interference with her right to family life. She also complained that she had no access to intelligence information about her dangerous contacts, which, in her view, constituted a denial of justice.
However, the Senate of the Constitutional Court, headed by Presiding Judge Jiří Priban, did not accept these arguments. He noted that the courts had had the opportunity to review the classified information, and therefore the woman’s rights had been safeguarded. Given the classified nature of the findings, it follows that this information cannot be made public, as that would contradict the purpose of its classification.
“The Constitutional Court reviewed the classified facts and concluded that, in the complainant’s case, these were not merely random or isolated contacts with individuals linked to terrorism. These contacts are ongoing and pose a real and serious threat to the interests of society and national security,” Priban noted in the ruling, according to Novinky.
Earlier, Ukraine and the Czech Republic exposed a call center that defrauded investors of more than 8 million hryvnias.
