Case summaries

A decision to expel an applicant with post-traumatic stress disorder to Poland did not violate Art 3 ECHR. The Member States guarantee, in accordance with Art 15 of the Reception Conditions Directive, to provide asylum applicants with the necessary medical treatment. Only in very exceptional cases does an expulsion violate Art 3 ECHR, even less frequently in cases of expulsions under the Dublin II regulation.

In its assessment of real risk of serious harm the CALL took into consideration the psychological circumstances of the applicant. The CALL considered that the seriousness of the applicant’s past traumatic experiences (as a child soldier) had left such psychological marks on him that a future forced enrolment in the army would be psychologically unbearable for him and would, in his case, amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

No violation of Articles 3 of the Convention and Article 4 of Protocol 4 should the Applicant be removed to Afghanistan. This assessment was made in light of the personal circumstances of the Applicant and the overall context in Afghanistan.

The case concerns access to a remedy with suspensive effect by an asylum seeker, who claimed asylum at the French border, against a potential removal from France to a country where there is real reason to believe he would face the risk of being subjected to ill-treatment contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR.

This case concerns how internal protection alternatives should be assessed when identifying whether there is a real risk of a violation of Art. 3 ECHR in the country of origin. It also concerns generalized violence and an individual assessment of risk in Somalia. The Court held that the Applicant’s expulsion to Somalia would be in violation of Art. 3 of the Convention and that there was no violation of Art. 13.

The case concerned a woman who feared return to Sierra Leone because she would face gender specific persecution in the form of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).  The issue was whether she was entitled to recognition as a refugee because she feared persecution on account of her membership of a particular social group.  Her appeal was allowed on the basis that women in Sierra Leone and, alternatively, uninitiated women who had not been subjected to FGM in Sierra Leone, were particular social groups.

Multiple violations of the Convention by the Belgian Government by detaining an unaccompanied five-year-old child at a transit centre for adult foreigners, removing her and conditions in which she was removed to her home country. Distress and anxiety of the mother as a result of her daughter’s detention and deportation resulted in a number of violations of the Convention. 

The House of Lords considered whether refusal or deprivation of state support to destitute asylum applicants, who were by law prohibited from working, was sufficiently severe as to engage Art 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Women who want to escape from a forced marriage, whose attitude is perceived by whole or part of the society of their country of origin as an infringement of the applicable customs and laws, and who therefore face a risk of persecution against which the authorities are unable or unwilling to provide protection, must be considered as members of a social group in the meaning of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention; when these conditions are not fulfilled, in particular when their behavior is not perceived as an infringement of the social order, these women nevertheless face the risk of suffering inhuman or degrading treatment and should therefore be granted subsidiary protection.

The European Court of Human Rights held that the expulsion of an Eritrean deserter to Eritrea would give rise to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.