Case summaries
The applicant lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the High National Court to refuse granting refugee status. The refusal was founded on the application of an exclusion clause. It was held that the applicant constituted a danger to Spanish security. This decision examined the conditions required to apply this exclusion clause, namely that it has to be determined that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that such danger exists.
Homosexuals in Tunisia, even those that do not proclaim or overtly demonstrate their sexual orientation, can be considered as constituting a specific and sufficiently identifiable whole so as to form a group whose members would face a risk of persecution for reasons of common characteristics which define them in the eyes of the Tunisian authorities and society.
The European Court of Human Rights found a violation of Article 5 para 1 (f), 4 and 5 with regards to some of the eleven applicants in this case, who were detained as suspected terrorists by UK authorities.
The applicant, a Tunisian national, having served a sentence in Italy on the charge, among others, of criminal conspiracy, faced deportation from Italy to Tunisia, where he risked ill-treatment.
The Court found that the deportation of the applicant to Tunisia would constitute a violation of Article 3 ECHR. The absolute nature of Article 3 meant that the conduct of the applicant was irrelevant for the purposes of Article 3.