Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Taous Lassal, Child Poverty Action Group (intervening) C-162/09, CJEU (Third Chamber) (K. Lenaerts, President of the Chamber, R. Silva de Lapuerta (Rapporteur), G. Arestis, J. Malenovský and T. von Danwitz): The European Court of Justice held that articles 16(1) and 16(4) of Directive 2004/38/EC must be interpreted as meaning that (i) continuous periods of five years’ residence completed before the date of transposition of the Directive (30 April 2006) must be taken into account for the purposes of the acquisition of the right of permanent residence pursuant to article 16(1); and (ii) absences from the host member state of less than two years which occurred before 30 April 2006 but following a continuous period of five years’ legal residence completed before that date do not affect the acquisition of the right of permanent residence pursuant to article 16(1). This welcome but not unexpected result, ensures that many more EU citizens and their family members of any nationality have acquired the EU right of permanent residence and thus a right to reside for the purposes of eligibility tests in social welfare law. Click here for transcript. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }