Stories of intense feeling — its suddenness, its power over people of every age — once so popular in pop songs, have long since given way to stories that treat love as some kind of semi-criminal escapade, or an excuse for parting with dramatic gestures and a swift swap of one flame for another. The speed of communication that comes with the internet leaves its mark on the very structure of human relationships, on bonds and attachments. But the hero of this story is a man from an earlier era, when a dance on a summer veranda in a park of culture and leisure could easily blossom into a lifelong romance in a 17-square-meter one-room Khrushchev-era flat. The backdrop against which this story unfolds is the state itself — a state whose laws and structures are, if our client's own version of this love story is to be believed, every bit as old-fashioned as he is.
Mendelssohn's Wedding March
Processing Times
A German embassy is required to process a family reunification application within a reasonable time — an unjustified delay can be challenged through an action for failure to act (Untätigkeitsklage).
The famous composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote his celebrated march as one of the pieces for the musical incidental work "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Long before Mendelssohn, William Shakespeare had written the play of the same name, needing something to entertain the English rabble on market day. Sixteen years after Mendelssohn completed his march — in 1842 — this short, romantic and stately piece was fated to break away from Shakespeare for good and take up residence instead in churches, town halls and Soviet civil registry offices. What proved both a blessing and a curse for the composer's name was that England's Queen Victoria and Prussia's crown prince Friedrich were joined in lawful marriage to the chords of this very march, now known to everyone simply as "Mendelssohn's Wedding March."
Our client is no crown prince, of course, but in his seventy-second year he too felt the pull to take a few steps down the well-trodden red carpet of a wedding palace in one of Kyiv's districts. In late 2016, Herr Sch. found his Frau Tatiana to the sounds of that very same piece that had once delighted the ears of lovestruck royalty. Mendelssohn's march, however, was not the only thing that brought Shishman and Crown Prince Friedrich together — Sch. had by then lived for nearly two decades in Prussia's capital, Berlin. And his Tatiana was longing to join him.
Herr Sch. had moved to Germany from the vast expanses of the former Soviet Union in the mid-1990s. At the time, a powerful wave of emigration had uprooted so-called Russian Germans and persons of Jewish nationality from their settled lives. In Germany, Sch. obtained a permanent residence permit, an apartment in the district popular among newcomers from Russia and Ukraine — the Ku'damm — and a social welfare package. Work came his way from time to time, never for long. The years passed steadily, but his health began to falter. Leg problems eventually landed him on the operating table and left him disabled. Nothing overly dramatic, mind you — no "bedridden" scenario. If you happened to run into Mr. Shishman in some corridor, you would never guess he had any ailment at all. But out on the street, this cheerful gentleman prefers to get around with the help of a rollator.
Tatiana was born in the late 1970s. Full-figured, as if she had stepped straight out of a film adaptation of Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka" in the role of Solokha, Tatiana never let hardship get her down, meeting every difficulty with hearty laughter. Her youth and early adulthood coincided with years when Ukraine's economy was, in a sense, both booming and busted — in the sense that nothing at all worked properly. More stable times differed little from the nineties when it came to material prosperity. Shishman's bride developed a tough, resilient character. When the opportunity arose, she found work in Poland and obtained a work visa. Back in Ukraine, she had to help her aging parents, but there was still a little money left over for herself. And somehow, she had already started wanting to settle her personal life. Just as thoughts of the future began to replace the evening news in her mind, Herr Sch. proposed to Tatiana.
A Long Road for Long Years to Come
"I saw her in Kyiv in the early nineties and fell in love at once. We went to the movies, took walks together. A romance began. Then I had to leave. The opportunity presented itself — life in the former Union was becoming impossible: no work, no money, medical care becoming unavailable — and I decided to seize it. I never forgot Tatiana. I came back to visit whenever I could. We lived together for a week here, a week there. We didn't really think about marriage back then. There was too much unsettled in our lives. But the years go by, and we don't get any younger. You want to spend your remaining years in the warmth of a family, next to someone close to you. So last year I finally made up my mind to propose. Tanya didn't say no," Mr. Shishman told our attorney.
If, dear reader, the appearance of an attorney in this story made you flinch, remember that this column is called "From Our Legal Practice," and an attorney was bound to show up sooner or later. Judging by their own accounts, the newlyweds are doing just fine — one could even call it a honeymoon. There's no need to worry about them. They needed an attorney because the state stood in the way of their happiness. The Federal Republic of Germany was in no hurry to bring out its instruments and play the famous wedding march for the newly married Shishmans. There were reasons for that — and besides, it had already been played once, in the Ukrainian capital.
Germany is a state governed by the rule of law. That means different situations are governed by different provisions of criminal and civil law, and it means the state stands guard over human rights. Starting a family is every person's inalienable right, and in that respect Germany fully protects family values. But changing one's permanent place of residence upon marriage is governed by entirely different legal provisions — ones designed to make the path harder, precisely to stop the institution of marriage being used as a source of profit, or as a corridor for shipping citizens of other states from a "bad" starting point to a "viel Glück" ("good luck") destination. One can understand the state's position, since the world is still divided into "us" and "them," and the state guarantees certain benefits only to "its own." And yes, this hurdle only has real weight for non-German citizens who already hold a residence permit. If a German citizen falls in love with someone from the equatorial forests of the African continent, the couple will face barely any problems at all. But if you aren't a citizen…
Without Me, My Love
Respecting a person's right to speak their native language and to observe their own national, cultural norms and traditions, Germany places no obstacles in the way of family happiness — but only where the spouse permanently residing in Germany has sufficient means to support the family. The person seeking to reunite their family in Germany must hold an A1-level German exam certificate, and the family-reunification documents must be submitted to the German embassy in the place of residence and registration of the spouse who does not hold a German residence permit. On every count, the young Shishman couple's path to family happiness was open — but only within Ukraine. And what happiness could there be in that?! These were hardly twenty-year-olds. But…
Mr. Shishman, in Germany, is disabled and accordingly receives social benefits. The funds allocated by the state are enough for one person to live on. But for two… that, unfortunately, was another matter. And what if children came along on top of that? On this point, things looked bad. Tatiana Sch. had zero proficiency in German — another mark against them. The third problem was that Tatiana had already been living in Poland for some time and had no plans whatsoever to return home in the near future. At this crossroads, it seemed only one green light remained for the Sch. family — back to Ukraine! But…
Having reviewed every document in the case and interviewed Herr, and — still, at that point — Frau Shishman, our firm's attorneys found a way to turn each of these minuses into a plus. First and foremost, it was necessary to close off any argument officials might make that the couple were free to build their family life in Ukraine. Our firm's attorney's argument was that Mr. Sch., having originally come to Germany under the "Jewish quota," held a status equivalent to that of a refugee. His return to the very place from which he had formally fled was therefore an absurd idea — one only a committed sadist could have suggested.
While preparations for submitting the documents to the immigration authority were underway, Tatiana was enrolled in language courses. By the time our firm's attorney escorted the newlyweds to their appointment with officials, Tatiana held a certificate of completion for an A1-level course. She had not yet had time to sit the exam for the actual certificate, but the completion certificate already demonstrated that she had acquired a certain level of language skill. And, under the fifth section of the law on temporary residence, since Tatiana held a Polish work visa at the time of the marriage and permanently resided in Poland, the Shishmans gained the option of filing the family-reunification documents somewhere other than Ukraine.
That left the last and hardest point of all — whether Mr. Shishman had sufficient means to support the family. And here, the story of turning minuses into pluses must break off. Let it remain the secret of our firm's attorneys just how this problem was resolved. It was entirely lawful, but done in such a way that, as the saying goes, "don't try this trick at home — think about your own future." In the end, when the immigration officials reviewed the documents our firm's attorneys had prepared, Tatiana had a three-year German residence permit in hand within fifteen minutes. Pani Tatiana had become Frau. And the newlyweds, leaning on the rollator, rolled off to celebrate the occasion with a feast. And on our firm's shelf of successfully closed cases, there was room for one more folder.
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