Case summaries

The applicant appealed the Migration Court’s decision to dismiss his application for asylum on grounds of the availability of an internal protection alternative in the applicants home country of Afghanistan.

The Migration Court of Appeal granted the appeal as it was held that the question of internal protection can only be assessed after the court has made an individual assessment of the original grounds for protection invoked by the applicant.
 

The request submitted by the Italian authorities to Norway to take back the applicant would imply his immediate repatriation to his country of origin, Afghanistan, which, in the light of the Court’s reasoning, is not to be considered a safe country.

The fact that a person has been the subject, in the past, of a decision excluding him from refugee status cannot automatically permit the finding that the mere presence of that person in the territory of the host Member State constitutes a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society. A case-by-case assessment is necessary before a measure based on grounds of public policy or public security is adopted. This assessment includes weighing the threat against the protection of the rights of EU citizens and their family members.

Similarly, in order to adopt an expulsion decision with due regard to the principle of proportionality, account must be taken of, inter alia, the nature and gravity of the alleged conduct of the individual concerned, the duration and, when appropriate, the legality of his residence in the host Member State, the period of time that has elapsed since that conduct, the individual’s behaviour during that period, the extent to which he currently poses a danger to society, and the solidity of social, cultural and family links with the host Member State.

The exhaustion of domestic remedies is a prerequisite for the admissibility of applications lodged with the ECtHR under Article 35 ECHR. Removal of individuals suffering from severe medical problems may not be considered inhumane in the meaning of Article 3 ECHR, when suitable treatment exists in the country of origin.  

The judicial examination of whether subsidiary protection shall be approved requires a thorough assessment of the individual case. This applies in particular for especially vulnerable persons.

The Council of State grants the appeal lodged by the Minister of the Interior, who asked for the annulment of the order issued by the administrative tribunal’s relief judge. The latter had suspended not only the execution of the decision refusing to register M. A…’s asylum application, but also the execution regarding his transfer, by ruling ultra petita. After qualifying M. A…’s non-attendance to the repeated notifications sent for the purpose of his transfer as being intentional and systematic, the Council of State concludes in this case that no violation was found against M. A…’s fundamental liberty of the right to asylum. 

An internal armed conflict, characterised by armed clashes, prevails throughout the whole territory of Afghanistan. The situation in the Kabul region and the city itself constitutes indiscriminate violence resulting from this internal armed conflict.

Transferring a family to Finland under the Dublin Regulation where their asylum application and subsequent appeals have been rejected is unlawful on account of the humanitarian and security situation in Afghanistan. 

In the case of doubts about family relationships, both the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) and the Austrian embassy abroad must for the purpose of family reunification enable applicants to have a DNA-analysis carried out at their request and inform them of this possibility. The purpose of this DNA-analysis is to enable the applicant to eliminate existing doubts about a family relationship and thus to achieve family reunification.

The authorities followed an incorrect interpretation of the Dublin Regulation 604/2013 failing to take into account that the older applicant is the brother of the minor and should remain in Hungary under Article 10 of the Regulation, despite having lodged an application in Bulgaria.

The ECtHR ruled that there had not been a violation of Article 5(1) ECHR in the applicant’s detention at the VIAL hotspot, a day after the entry into force of the EU-Turkey Statement. It also ruled that the threshold of severity required for their detention conditions to be considered as inhuman or degrading treatment had not been reached.

However, the ECtHR found that Greece violated the applicant’s rights under Article 5(2) by not providing them with detailed, understandable information about the reasons for their detention and the remedies available to them.