Case summaries

An Applicant’s interest in remaining in a Member State pending a final decision on his asylum status prevails over the public’s interest in immediate enforcement of an ordered transfer if the appropriate asylum procedure of an Applicant in the country to which the Applicant would be deported cannot be ensured (Hungary). 

An Applicant’s interest in remaining in a Member State prevails over the public’s interest in deporting the Applicant to the Member State in which the Applicant first sought asylum if there is a predominant degree of likelihood that the Applicant will be subject to inhuman or degrading treatment in the other Member State (e.g. because of significant capacity problems and a change to its asylum law).

This judicial review case quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision on the basis that the Tribunal member incorrectly made credibility findings regarding the applicant’s claim without a fully reasoned consideration of the country of origin information and a flawed reliance on inconsistencies in an Iranian Court document. 

Considering the general situation in the country and the circumstances specific to the Applicant, the ECtHR held that there were no serious and current grounds to believe that she would be at real risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 upon her return to Nigeria. 

An applicant’s interest in remaining in a Member State pending a decision on their right to remain will prevail if, due to a lack of knowledge about the actual living situation of refugees in the third country and negative public reports regarding such situations, there can be no assurance that the applicant will be safe in said third country.

Where negative reports regarding the reception conditions and inhuman or degrading treatment in a first country of asylum indicate that an Applicant may not be safe in such a country, an Applicant’s request to remain in a Member State pending a decision on their right to remain must be given the benefit of doubt and outweigh the public’s interest in immediate enforcement of the ordered transfer.

The case examines the risk to an Iranian national if expelled to Iran in light of his political activities against the country’s regime. The Court confirmed that such a return would give rise to a violation of Article 3 ECHR and whilst finding an Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 3 violation as admissible it raised no separate issue in the case.

The reasonable possibility of relocation to the Anbar governorate rendered a Sunni Muslim’s return to Iraq Article 3 compliant in spite of the personal risk he faced in Baghdad from a blood feud. His former membership of the Ba’ath party and military service was no longer regarded as a threat by the Court.

The interest of an applicant to obtain a temporary stay from deportation to Italy for the time being predominates, if the applicant, in case of his return back to Italy, would be threatened with serious damage to his health due to inadequate accommodation opportunities there and because medical care would not be guaranteed due to a permanent overstretch of resources.

This was a decision of the Polish Refugee Board of 29 August 2013 to uphold that part of the decision of the Head of the Polish Office for Foreigners which concerned refusal to accord refugee status and to overturn the remainder of the decision as well as to grant subsidiary protection.

The results of the linguistic analysis carried out by an external expert company should be assessed in the context of all the evidence gathered in the case, taking into account the principle of the benefit of doubt, also as regards establishing the country of origin.

Certain inaccuracies in the detail actually lend credibility to the testimony. This is evident particularly if one takes into account the fact that the foreign woman is a simple person without any education.