Case summaries

When due to security reasons an individual cannot be allowed to return to his home where he has lived most of his life, the State has to adopt any other available positive measure to restore his property rights or to provide him with compensation in an appropriate time. Otherwise a violation of both Art. 8 of the Convention and Art. 1 of Protocol No. 1 may occur. 

A person in detention pending deportation has a fundamental right to receive visitors -including visits from journalists -and inhibiting this visiting right for the person in detention can be challenged by way of appeal to the Independent Administrative Senate. A journalist, on the other hand, who has been refused a visit to someone in deportation detention, does not have a right of appeal, amongst other things, because the information which could be provided by the person in deportation detentionis not publicly accessible and there is thus no state obligation under Art 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to facilitate access to this information by granting a visit to the person in deportation detention.

According to section51(1) of the Aliens Act, a foreigner living in Finland without a residence document will be granted a temporary residence document in a situation where he/she cannot be refouled.  In this case, it was considered whether a foreignor should be granted a residence document if he/she could voluntarily go back.

In the case of individuals who are eligible for subsidiary protection according to the Qualification Directive, the limitation of residence represents an unauthorised limitation on the free movement of persons according to Article 32 of the Qualification Directive if it is based solely on social welfare grounds.  

It was unlawful to refuse to issue a travel document to the holder of subsidiary protection status on the assumption that the person had provided false information prior to the decision on the asylum application and because identity documentation in his file was incomplete.

As the Republic of Slovenia agreed to readmit the Applicant in accordance with the terms defined in the Dublin Convention, he should be treated as an applicant for international protection from the moment he entered the country. Taking this into account, it was not acceptable to apply measures that are stipulated in the legislation for foreigners who did not apply for international protection. The Applicant’s freedom of movement could be restricted only under the terms and conditions that are used for Applicants for international protection.

In the case at hand there were no grounds on which to restrict the Applicant’s right to personal freedom. By housing the Applicant in an Asylum Centre for a disputed period of time, his right to personal freedom was unacceptably restricted.

The refusal to grant a right of residence to a third-country national who is a family member of a Union citizen must not lead in fact to the obligation for the latter to leave the territory not only of the Member State of which he is a national but also that of the Union as a whole.

The case concerns an appeal lodged before the High Regional Court through the special procedure for Fundamental Rights (with the intervention of the Public Prosecutor). The applicant claimed asylum in Ceuta, Spain, and the application was accepted under the preliminary examination procedure. The applicant decided to move to the Spanish peninsula but he was prevented from crossing the border. He alleged that his right to free movement had been violated.

The provisions regarding the establishment and operation of Refugee Centres do not constitute a basis for ordering foreigners to stay in the said Centres, under penalty of having the asylum application procedure halted, on the sole ground that the police authorities consider their applications for asylum to be manifestly unfounded. The Refugee Centres were not established as centres where foreigners would be obliged to live – under penalty of halting the process of examining their applications for leave to remain – until the process had been completed, if those foreigners wish to and are able to stay elsewhere during the procedure, unless the Administration states that the measure is necessary for a specific and fully justified reason of public interest.

This decision upheld the decision of the District Court in J. as regards the legal inadmissibility of extraditing a foreigner. The decision to accord refugee status was taken by a competent French authority and is binding within the territory of Poland, where the foreigner, who is sought by the Russian authorities, was detained. Poland recognises the decisions of other states to accord refugee status to foreigners and grants such foreigners the same degree and scope of legal protection as it would in the case of a foreigner granted protection by a competent Polish authority.