Case summaries
The real risk of suffering the type of serious harm envisaged in Article 15(b) of the Qualification Directive (torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) may be established by an Applicant who proves that he is a member of a group systematically targeted for such harm and who does not put forward any other circumstances relating to his individual case.
French associations challenged an internal memo from the OFPRA (3 November 2011). The Council of State suspended the execution of that memo.
This was an application for an interim injunction preventing the removal of the applicants pending the outcome of their application for leave to apply for judicial review. The underlying leave application raised several different points, of these, one was deemed arguable: that Ireland’s deportation regime involving a lifetime ban on re-entry is contrary to the ECHR and Irish Constitution.
When detained under conditions that constitute the notion of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of article 3 ECHR, a person is not criminally responsible for committing the unlawful act of escaping custody.
Conversion to Christianity led to a re-examination of impediments to enforcement.
The Procedures Directive does not apply to subsidiary protection decisions when a Member State, such as Ireland, does not have a unified asylum procedure.
Article 10 of Legislative Decree 25/2008 sets out guarantees for asylum seekers as regards procedural access according to which the asylum seeker should be informed not only of his rights and obligations during the procedure but also on the means and times available to him for his asylum application. In addition, section 4 provides for timely information to be given to the Applicant concerning the decision taken by the Territorial Commission. This should be provided in the first language indicated by the Applicant or in one of the four official languages.
This provision has to be respected for the procedure to be valid.
Article 1F(b) of the 1951 Refugee Convention is applicable even if the sentence (for a serious non-political crime) has been served. The Court has to inquire whether the reception of the applicant in France represents a danger or a risk to the population.
The Council of State addressed a request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU regarding the application of the Reception Conditions Directive to asylum applicants to whom the Dublin II Regulation applies.