Finland - Helsinki Administrative Court, 22 March 2011, 11/0338/1
Keywords:
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Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Description
A form of serious harm for the purposes of the granting of subsidiary protection. The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in Celibici defined cruel or inhuman treatment as ‘an intentional act or omission, that is an act which, judged objectively, is deliberate and not accidental, that causes serious mental or physical suffering or injury or constitutes a serious attack on human dignity.’ “Ill-treatment means all forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including corporal punishment, which deprives the individual of its physical and mental integrity." |
Headnote:
The Helsinki Administrative Court held that returning a single mother with her two children to Malta to the conditions described and investigated, among others, in a UN Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Mission to Malta, and on the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee report on Maltese detention centres may cause the family to face inhuman treatment.
Facts:
The applicant was granted a residence permit in Malta. The Finnish Immigration Service did not examine the application for international protection, and decided to return the applicant to Malta. The applicant was a single mother of two small children.
Decision & reasoning:
Evidence was presented in the case regarding the difficult situation faced by the family, including an enhanced need for a family social worker. According to the applicant’s statement, she had been removed from the reception centre in Malta, and was forced to live on the street with her children.
The Court held that returning a single mother with her two children to Malta, and into the conditions described and investigated, among others, in the UN Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Mission to Malta, and on the European Parliament’s LIBE-committees report on Maltese detention centres, may cause the family to suffer inhuman treatment, as mentioned in §147 of the Aliens’ Act. Any possible improvements since the publication of these reports have not come to the Administrative Court’s attention. The Administrative court also took §6 and §146 of the Aliens’ Act into account and held that the applicants’ return to Malta was to be overturned, and that their asylum application should be examined in substance in Finland.
Outcome:
The Administrative Court reversed the Immigration Service’s decision and returned the case to the Immigration Service for further examination. The Administrative Court held that the asylum application should be examined in Finland.
Relevant International and European Legislation:
Other sources:
Report by the LIBE Committee delegation on its visit to the administrative detention centres in Malta: Rapporteur: Giusto Catania. European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. PV/613713EN.doc. Brussels. 30 March 2006.
United Nations (2009) UN: Report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Mission to Malta (19 to 23 January 2009).