Case summaries

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.

The Court ruled that, even where national security was at stake, deportation measures should be subject to some form of adversarial proceedings before an independent authority or court. In this case, the Macedonian courts failed to scrutinise whether an expulsion order was issued on genuine national security grounds, violating Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention.

The Court submitted a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the requirement of an automatic suspension of the execution of a negative decision on applications for international protection under EU law.

The case concerns an application for the annulment of the decision of the Appeals Committee which rejected the applicant’s previous application to overturn the decision of the Regional Asylum Office of Samos whereby he was denied international protection. The Court determined that the case was inadmissible, accepted the relevant justifications given by the Appeals Committee and rejected the application. 

The possibility to lodge an asylum application in practice is a prerequisite for the effective protection of those in need of international protection. If access to the asylum procedure is not guaranteed by the national authorities, asylum applicants cannot benefit from the guarantees afforded to those under the asylum procedure, leaving them subject to detention at any time. The length of time in which it took for the applicant to lodge his asylum application violated his rights under Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 3 ECHR.

The refusal of an entry decision given to an unaccompanied child at the Franco-Italian border is manifestly unlawful and constitutes a severe breach of the applicant’s interest.

In cases of deportation to a third country, the competent authority is required to assess, on a case-by-case basis, if the third country offers effective legal protection against deportation to the state of origin.

In the case of a Turkish journalist of Kurdish origin, the competent authority had only insufficiently assessed if the applicant enjoys sufficient legal protection in Brazil against refoulment to Turkey. It therefore violated her right to be heard.

Where an individual is detained with a view to his removal and an Article 3 violation is alleged if the applicant is returned, it is for the Court to rule on the plea and thus assess the lawfulness of the decision to detain.

In the light of the ECtHR jurisprudence on Article 3 ECHR and country of origin information on Sudan the Belgian authorities had to rigorously verify if the applicant would risk being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR before issuing the order to leave the territory, which includes giving the applicant an effective opportunity to be heard. This applies regardless of whether the applicant had applied for asylum or not.