The Council of State, Holland’s highest judiciary body, has ruled that hardline minister Rita Verdonk did not give sufficient reasons for rejecting a residence permit on the grounds that she did not consider the case ‘exceptionally harrowing’. The test case was brought by an asylum seeker who has lived in the Netherlands for 14 years and will have far-reaching consequences, reports today’s Volkskrant.

Verdonk was forced to hand over her asylum-seekers portfolio to the justice minister earlier this month following her refusal to carry out MPs’ wishes and halt the deportation of long-term asylum seekers pending a general amnesty by a new cabinet.