Marianne Wiersma graduated in Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She has been an attorney since 2004. She was a co-founder of the legal firm Inigo Advocaten and has been working here as a partner since 2017. She specialises in regular immigration law, social security laws on immigration (Link Act), naturalisation law and administrative procedural law.

Her cases on immigration mostly concern complex family reunification, the withdrawal and refusal of the extension of residence permits (for example, by failing to meet the income requirements, by violating public policies or by providing incorrect data), the stay of highly skilled immigrants and entrepreneurs, the fines under the Civic Integration Act (Wib), and naturalisation and the detention of foreign nationals. European law plays an important role in practically all these cases, because it often offers more possibilities than Dutch national law. It mainly concerns the Family Reunification Directive 2003/86/EG, the Citizens’ Rights Directive on the unrestricted movement of persons 2004/38/EG, the Return Directive 2008/115, the Regulation for long-term residents 2003/109/EG, and The EU Charter on Fundamental Rights. In some cases, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) offers solace.

Memberships:
The Netherlands Association of Specialised Immigration Lawyers (SVMA), the Working Group on Legal Aid in Immigration Affairs (WRV), the Association for Administrative Law (VAR) and the Netherlands Committee of Jurists for Human Rights (NJCM). She lectures at the Immigration Law Charity the Netherlands.

Board member Fund Legal Protection Immigrants Foundation (Stichting FRI)
Board member Baroque Opera Foundation Amsterdam

Jurisdictions:

Ms M. Wiersma has registered the following principal (and secondary) legal practice areas in the Netherlands Bar’s register of legal areas:

– Immigration law / Detention of foreign nationals.

Under this registration, she is obliged to achieve ten points of training in each registered principle area in accordance with the standards of the Netherlands Bar Association.