I do not question that the Migration Court of Appeal ruled according to the applicable law. Courts are supposed to apply the law, not engage in politics. But that is precisely why the question must be asked elsewhere: what kind of legislation have we created – and what values does it reflect?
When a young person who has lived most of their life in Sweden, who has rooted themselves socially, culturally and often linguistically, is deemed “independent enough” to be deported because they have turned 18, then the law has become blind to reality. To require “special dependency” in addition to family ties is to ignore what the transition to adulthood actually looks like, even for young people born here.
It is not the court's responsibility to weigh humanism. It is the legislator's. When the scope for "particularly distressing circumstances" is interpreted so narrowly that homelessness, rootlessness and social vulnerability are not enough, then we have reduced the human being to a case number.
Sweden can do better than that. A society governed by the rule of law needs laws, but also dignity, proportionality and humanity. If judgments like this feel inhumane, it is not the judgments we should attack, but the political decisions that made them inevitable.
Do you want to read here how immigration is profitable for Sweden?
Louis De Geer, who can probably be called the best Swedish government leader of the 1800th century (1858-70, 1875-80), believed that a government should not push through laws that contradict people's sense of justice. That was, ironically, why he did not try to push through universal suffrage even though he was in favor of it; he did not have the support of public opinion.
It took popular mobilization to get those demands anchored. It will also be needed to scrap these laws.
Exciting.