Case summaries

Acts of a criminal nature cannot be equated with persecution within the meaning of grounds cited under the Convention. Public authorities in the country of origin, which the family of the foreignor did not contact, are supposed to provide protection against risks posed by individual citizens.

Persecution at the hands of political authorities acting for political reasons and with a political objective although not arising from the actual or imputed opinions of the individual concerned.

The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees contains a finite list of grounds on which refugee status may be recognised and does not include victims of war, natural disasters, or famine, family situation, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, or poverty.

The assessment of whether the foreignor's fear of persecution is justified must therefore be performed with reference to the individual case in question and in the light of the general social, legal, political, and economic situation of the country of origin of the foreignor applying for refugee status.

The court ordered the Office of Immigration and Nationality to conduct new proceedings. The mere fact that national security risk factors arise vis-à-vis a person is not sufficient reason to exclude them from refugee or subsidiary protection status.

The European Court of Human Rights held that the expulsion of an Algerian national from Slovakia to Algeria, in contempt of an interim measure issued by the Court, was in violation of Articles 3, 13 and 34 of the Convention.

Criminal sanctions against homosexual acts under Article 319 of the Criminal Code of Senegal constitute a deprivation of the fundamental right to live one’s own sexual and emotional life in freedom and are sufficient in themselves to justify granting refugee status.

1. The issue as to whether an asylum-seeker was already protected against political persecution in a third country is only relevant in terms of  the asylum application for recognition of refugee status in the context of the concept of the first country of asylum as defined in EU law in Article 29 of the Asylum Procedures Act (Articles 25 and 26 of the Asylum Procedures Directive).  

2. If the Federal Office has reached a decision on the asylum application in this case, the substantive question of the subsidiarity of refugee protection in the assessment of refugee status is no longer applicable.

The Court granted permission to the Applicant to seek judicial review of the negative decision made in a written appeal (rather than an oral appeal) in an application for refugee status made by a South African national. The decision to allow a written appeal was based on the status of South Africa as a ‘safe country,’ but because the appeal decision was based on personal credibility, the absence of an oral hearing may have been unlawful by reference to the right to an effective remedy as guaranteed by the Asylum Procedures Directive.

A social group is not formed by those of whom it consists, or even by the objective existence of characteristics ascribed to them, but by the way in which surrounding society or institutions regard them.