Carpenter v Secretary of State for the Home Department Case C-60/00, [2002] ECR I-6279

Mary Carpenter, a Philippine national, had overstayed her permission to remain in the United Kingdom and later married a British businessman. Her husband sold advertising and supplied related services to customers in other Member States, sometimes travelling for that work. She cared for his children from a previous marriage. The authorities refused her residence application and decided to deport her. The marriage was accepted as genuine. She argued that separation would damage family life and impede her husband’s cross-border business, leading the Immigration Appeal Tribunal to refer the EU-law question.

Did refusing residence to the third-country spouse of a UK-based cross-border service provider unjustifiably restrict his Treaty freedom when assessed in the light of respect for family life?

The Court held that Article 49 EC, now Article 56 TFEU, read with the fundamental right to respect for family life, precluded the refusal in the circumstances described. Mr Carpenter supplied services to recipients in other Member States, so the dispute was not purely internal merely because he remained established in the United Kingdom. Separation would affect the conditions in which he exercised that freedom. The Court accepted that immigration control served legitimate interests but found the measure disproportionate on these facts: the marriage was genuine, Mrs Carpenter cared for the children, and apart from overstaying there was no relevant public-order concern identified. The preliminary ruling established the EU constraint for the national proceedings; it was not a general exemption from immigration law for spouses.

A Member State restriction affecting cross-border services must respect fundamental rights. On Carpenter’s facts, refusing residence to the provider’s third-country spouse disproportionately interfered with family life and the effective exercise of the Treaty freedom. The cross-border link and proportionality assessment were both essential.

Carpenter illustrates how family rights can arise through the effective exercise of an economic freedom even where the EU citizen has not moved residence abroad. It should not be reduced to a free-standing rule that marriage creates EU residence rights. S and G later addresses comparable questions in the context of cross-border workers. For present UK cases, domestic immigration law and any relevant withdrawal protections require separate examination; this pre-withdrawal judgment does not establish an automatic current route to leave.