Case summaries

Delays in the asylum procedure which cannot be imputed to the asylum seeker, and failure to consider less coercive alternatives when detention exceeds reasonable time limits, render detention unlawful.

The ECtHR ruled that failure to allow a Russian family with five children to submit asylum applications on the Lithuanian border and their removal to Belarus amounted to a violation of Article 3 ECHR. 

When a refugee and their child apply for international protection, the Police Headquarters shall not make residence or parental relationship the conditions for submitting their application.

The Constitutional Council decides on the constitutionality of the 48H limit under national law for a third-country national to appeal against an order to be escorted to the border. The Council found that the deadline is in line with the French Constitution, as it guarantees the right to an effective remedy.

In the absence of EU rules concerning the procedural requirements with regard to the submission and examination of an application for international protection, Member States must determine those requirements provided that they do not render in practice impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of the right to seek asylum.

Neither the omission nor the delay of the Immigration Office can deprive an asylum applicant of the right to obtain the rehearing of their legal status in case of a change in the circumstances in their country of origin. 

After being notified of his return decision, set to take place on the same day, the applicant requested an interim measure on Article 3 ECHR grounds in the morning but was nonetheless expelled to Morocco in the afternoon. The Court found no violation of Article 3, regarding the applicant’s expulsion to Morocco, by taking into account subsequent information. It found a violation of Article 34 of the Convention, owing to the fact that the applicant had no sufficient time to file a request to the Court, hence running the risk back then of being potentially subjected to treatment prohibited by the Convention.

The case deals with the illegitimacy of denying the registration of an international protection request on the basis of the request being issued before a non-competent authority and lacking the criterion of “autonomous accommodation”.

The European Court of Human Rights finds Russian authorities violated an American national’s Article 8 right to respect for family life, as it had compelled her to leave Russia, where her husband and minor child were living.

The Constitutional Council decides on the constitutionality of the deadline to appeal against a return order, as applicable to a third-country national being detained, under paragraph 4 of Article L. 512-1 of the Code of Entry and Stay of Foreigners and the Right to Asylum (CESEDA). The Council decides hereby that the deadline proves to be too short- consequently unconstitutional- to effectively exercise the right to remedy in the context of detention.