Case summaries

Prospective extradition of Applicants, members of an established vulnerable group under ECtHR, to a country where the risk of ill-treatment is real shall trigger a violation of Article 3 ECHR. Detention orders not meeting Article 5§1(f) ECHR objective threshold are and should be deemed as unlawful. The plurality of domestic remedies with the same objective does not prescribe their use by the Applicant for the purposes of Article 35§1 ECHR.

The Immigration and Asylum Office unlawfully rejected the claimant’s application for international protection. The court found that the authorities did not objectively assess the evidence and country information provided by the claimant, a Coptic Christian from Egypt. They also failed to correctly interpret the definition of a refugee in accordance with international law and disregarded the special status of the claimant who was an underage applicant.

Effective access to justice relies on an individual having a voice in the proceedings concerning him or her. Solely focusing on the credibility of the appellant’s account and not having regard to objective evidence testifying to the appellant’s vulnerability or the risk to the appellant of return to Afghanistan has led to the proceedings being neither fair nor just. A material error of law has therefore been committed. 

An applicant may be granted refugee status under Article 1 of the 1951 Geneva Convention for fear of persecution based on sexual orientation. This depends on whether or not, according to the conditions prevailing in the country of origin, persons sharing a sexual orientation may be regarded as a social group within the meaning of the Convention.

The applicant, an ethnic Ingush and a Muslim from Ingushetia, Russia, feared her former husband and his family. She feared they would take her daughter away from her because she ran away with her child. Moreover, the applicant feared her eldest brother as he would marry her off to an elderly man and take her child away and hand the child over to her former husband.

The Refugee Appeals Board did not find that the conflicts between the applicant and her family members were of such nature and intensity to fall under the Danish Aliens Act Art. 7. Consequently, the Board upheld the Danish Immigration Service’s decision to refuse the application.

It is not reasonably likely that a draft-evader would face criminal/administrative proceedings in Ukraine but there is a real risk that a person sentenced to imprisonment in Ukraine would be detained on arrival there and that detention conditions would breach Article 3 ECHR.

The applicant, an ethnic Al-Bagal and Sunni Muslim from Moraya, Nyala, Darfur, Sudan feared imprisonment or execution by the Sudanese authorities. According to the applicant’s account he had been imprisoned for alleged political activities for a total of 18 months during which he was tortured. Subsequently, he was regularly harassed by the Intelligence Service.

The Danish Immigration Service rejected the asylum application in July 2016.

On 29 November 2016, the Refugee Appeals Board upheld the decision of the Danish Immigration Service. The majority of the Board did not find to a sufficient degree that a torture examination would be of essential importance for deciding the case.

The Refugee Appeals Board resumed the case based on a forensic report presented by the applicant. The Board now referring to the forensic report accepted that the applicant had been exposed to torture. The Board thus found that the applicant, to a sufficient degree, had rendered probable that he, if returning to Sudan, was at risk of persecution and granted the applicant refugee status according to the Danish Aliens Act Art. 7 (1).

The applicant, an ethnic Kurd and a Yarsan from Kanehar, Kermanshah, Iran, had performed religious activities aimed at spreading the knowledge of the faith and thereby attracted the attention of the authorities.

The majority of the Board accepted the applicants account and consequently the Board found that the applicant risked persecution because of his Yarsan religious activities and granted refugee status under the Danish Aliens Act Art. 7 (1).