Case summaries

The reception conditions for beneficiaries of international protection in Bulgaria are such that they may face severe material deprivation due to “indifference” on the part of the authorities (cfr. CJEU, Ibrahim), potentially amounting to a violation of Article 3 ECHR / Article 4 CFREU.

When the State Secretary decides that a request for international protection is not admissible, because the applicants have refugee status in Bulgaria, it is not sufficient for him to refer to the principle of mutual trust between EU Member States and to the Council of State’s jurisprudence, but he is obliged to examine the applicant’ s individual circumstances and to obtain specific information and guarantees from the Bulgarian authorities.

The Council of State decided on the date from which the 6-month time limit provided by Article 29§1 of the Dublin regulation 604/2013 begins running or when it starts running again in case of an interruption. At the expiry of this deadline, the responsibility of the examination of an asylum claim falls back to the Member State which requested another Member State that charge be taken or to take back, as it did not proceed to the applicant’s transfer.  The Council specified that this deadline starts running once the other Member State has accepted the request that charge be taken or to take back. In case of an appeal, the delay is interrupted and begins running again at the date of the final judgment deciding on this appeal. Following appeals do not interrupt this newly-established delay.

The impossibility to proceed with an asylum applicant’s transfer to another Member State responsible for examining the asylum application  is established once there is a clear and real risk for the interested party to be subject to torture or inhuman or degrading treatments within the meaning of articles 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU), even in the absence of having serious reasons to believe there are systemic failures in the Member State’s asylum system. 

The complainant, an Eritrean citizen and a single woman with a one-and-a-half-year-old child, filed a complaint against the decision of the Danish Immigration Service to reject her application in accordance with the Danish Aliens Act art. 29 (b) as the Greek authorities had granted her refugee status in Greece, valid until 25 November 2017. The complainant referred to the UNHCR EXCOM-conclusion no. 58/1989.

The Board did not find that the general social and economic conditions for refugees with a residence permit in Greece – although difficult – in itself could lead to the complainant not being referred to Greece as first asylum country. The Board did not find that the complainant as a single mother with a one-and-a-half-year-old child was to be considered quite particularly vulnerable. Consequently, the Refugee Appeals Board found the conditions for using Greece as first country of asylum fulfilled. The case was, however, remitted to the Immigration Service by the Appeals Board in May 2018 upon the Service's confirmation that they would consider the application in light of the applicant's residence permit having expired in Greece. 

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 Council of State grants the appeal lodged by the Minister of the Interior, who asked for the annulment of the order issued by the administrative tribunal’s relief judge. The latter had suspended not only the execution of the decision refusing to register M. A…’s asylum application, but also the execution regarding his transfer, by ruling ultra petita. After qualifying M. A…’s non-attendance to the repeated notifications sent for the purpose of his transfer as being intentional and systematic, the Council of State concludes in this case that no violation was found against M. A…’s fundamental liberty of the right to asylum. 

In contrast to the obligation to provide information to asylum applicants under the Dublin Regulation, Article 18(1) of the Eurodac Regulation has as its sole purpose and effect the effective protection of the personal data of the asylum seekers concerned. The right of asylum seekers to information contributes, together with the right of communication, the right to rectify and erase the data. 

A Stateless Palestinian and Sunni Muslim from Lebanon, single woman, born and raised in Saudi Arabia who had a conflict with her family because she had had a relationship with a French Christian man and lost her virginity.

The Board found that seen in isolation as a Stateless Palestinian the applicant is covered by the Danish Aliens Act Art 7 (1).

The Board found that because the applicant had never resided in Lebanon, did not have any relation to that country, and due to her conflict with her family and based on country of origin information regarding entry options to Saudi Arabia as well as Lebanon for Stateless Palestinians, neither Saudi Arabia nor Lebanon could be considered as a first country of asylum. Consequently, the applicant was granted refugee status under the Danish Aliens Act Art. 7 (1).

A renewed application for asylum in a second country is admissible if the nature of international protection applied for differs from the protection already granted. Deportation to the country of the first application or the country of origin is not to be taken into account in this situation.