Case summaries
Subsidiary protection was granted to the applicant due to the lack of his family ties in Afghanistan on the basis of the risk of serious harm (torture and inhuman treatment).
The case involved the rejection of an asylum application by an Iranian citizen of Kurdish origins who cited a fear of persecution because of his religious opinions and, specifically, having become a Christian. In support of his claims he submitted his baptism certificate and invoked the punishment stipulated by the legal system in his country of origin for changing his religion. The Minister for Public Order's decision on the party's application was annulled for being insufficiently reasoned.
A decision terminating the procedure is unlawful and it is not in the function of providing access to the asylum procedures and the protection of the principle of non-refoulement, if the Asylum authority immediately and automatically as soon as the applicant failed to appear for the personal interview, even though he was regularly summoned and informed of the consequences if he does not appear, issued a decision to close the case, without firstly carrying out reasonable activities within the reception centre in order to establish why the applicant did not attend the interview.
In the event that a national legal norm is not in compliance with EU law, the court does not suspend the procedure for assessment of constitutionality of the disputed provision, but ignores the disputed legal provision and directly uses a clear and unconditional provision of secondary EU law with a direct effect. The obligation to ignore the national norm in such cases also applies to administrative authorities.
The Iranian applicants’ asylum claim was rejected by the authorities as they were not found credible. As a result of this finding, the authorities did not consider their account in light of the country of origin information on Iran. The court quashed the decision and granted refugee status to the family reasoning that the authorities are obliged to carry out a thorough and complete fact assessment.
It was found that the contradictions in the applicants' account were not relevant from the point of view of international protection. The court also ruled that the authority is obliged to clarify misunderstandings at hearings, at the same time applicants have to be given the opportunity to justify contradictions and incoherencies in their statements.
The transposition of the Asylum Procedures Directive (APD) in French legislation is incomplete on certain aspects (provision of information to applicants for asylum; access to the report of the personal interview under the border procedure) and complete on other aspects.
The Ethiopian applicant was a victim of sexual violence and suffered from serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her claim was rejected based on credibility concerns. The court ruled that the asylum authority failed to assess the facts of the case in a proper manner by applying inappropriate interview techniques and wrongly concluded that the applicant did not substantiate her well-founded fear of persecution.
The decision of the Administrative Court to refuse the applicant an oral hearing was overturned. The SAC held the Administrative Court did not show the Qualification Directive (which was implemented during the proceedings) had been applied and that the Administrative Court failed to take into consideration that as an asylum seeker the applicant had limited possibilities of supporting his claim by submitting written evidence only.
The European Court of Human Rights held that the deportation of an Iranian national to Iran would give rise to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.
The discrepancies between the evidence which the Administration and the asylum Applicant presented to the Council of State created serious doubts about whether the facts invoked by the Applicant to confirm his refugee status were correctly recorded and in general about the lawful examination of the said application in compliance with the procedures stipulated by the provisions of Articles 2(3) and 3(7) of Presidential Decree 61/1999.
Traumatised people and those who have suffered otherwise psychologically and physically from flight behave differently when giving evidence compared with healthy people. This can mean that the full submissions relevant to asylum are not provided at the start of the proceedings or the traumatisation itself is not mentioned. These circumstances are to be taken into account during the ban on new evidence.