Case summaries

The right to obtain information about the whereabouts of a disappeared family member, as well as publicising the information concerning the disappearance, belong, according to the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedom, to political rights. Therefore, the applicant must be granted asylum if he had been persecuted for exercising this right.

A female applicant from Syria belonging to a minority group was eligible for refugee protection based on the lack of fundamental rights and freedoms for the minority to which she belonged, in addition to her political activities.

A HIV-infected person cannot be granted a residence permit in Sweden on medical grounds if health care and medicines are available in the home country, even if the person has financial difficulties and has to pay for treatment himself/herself. The economic consequences of doing so for Sweden must be taken into consideration in the decision. Further, that an assessment of whether an applicant risks being prevented from getting adequate care because of their political opinions should be made in the context of examining the need for protection and not as part of an assessment of whether there are any particularly distressing circumstances.

In order to assess the persecution fears of a person in case of return to his/her country of origin, concrete modes in which such a return will most likely take place must be taken into consideration.

The UNHCR Handbook is an important source of law concerning the procedure to determine protection needs. The Migration Court is responsible for ensuring that a case is sufficiently investigated by holding an oral hearing or otherwise investigating the ambiguities of the case, when an asylum seeker who has been rejected because of credibility grounds has submitted relevant documents that are deemed to be genuine by a Swedish embassy.

Membership of a political party is not required to establish persecution for reasons of political opinion.

Rejection of an extradition request by Azerbaijan in a case where the wanted person had been recognised as a refugee by Germany. Azerbaijan's request for extradition because of acts contrary to common criminal law was a premise aimed at stifling the wanted person's political opposition to the extraditing country's government. Azerbaijan was requesting extradition for political reasons.

The case involved two Uzbek nationals who were extradited to Uzbekistan by Turkey after Uzbekistan claimed they had committed terror-related crimes, while the applicants countered that they were political dissidents and would face ill-treatment and torture if returned. Despite the Court ordering interim measures to defer, Turkey extradited both and they were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. The Court found no violations of Art. 2, 3, or 6, but did find a violation of Art. 34 for Turkey’s non-compliance with the interim measures. 

Refusal to perform compulsory basic military service cannot be considered as a reason for granting asylum, particularly if such a refusal is not connected with manifested political or religious beliefs.

The 1951 Refugee Convention does not provide protection in respect of claims of conscientious objectors who feared imprisonment for their refusal to undertake military service where there is no alternative service offered in national law. This was the position even if that objection is to all forms of military service and is absolute. The right to conscientious objection was not yet protected in international human rights law and was yet to emerge as a principle of customary international law. A claim may succeed if the applicant would be required, in the course of military service, to conduct military action that breached the basic rules of human conduct or if the punishment they would receive for refusal to serve was discriminatory or disproportionate. Secondly, when assessing whether persecution was “for” a Convention reason the decision-maker should ask the question of “what was the real reason for the persecution?”. The decision-maker should not limit the enquiry to the persecutor’s motivation but should look for the effective reason or reasons.