Case summaries

General situation in the country of origin, however difficult, does not justify granting refugee status, if there is no or only some small risk of persecutions (such risk can never be actually eliminated). However the authority is obliged to individually assess the situation of a particular applicant. This is not possible without careful examination of all the letters submitted by the applicant during the proceedings before the first and the second instance. Failure to do this cannot be validated by the Court by determining the facts on its own, since it would lead to de facto depriving the applicant of his right to have the case examined in two administrative instances.

This is an application for judicial review of a decision made by the defendant local authority assessing the claimant to be an adult. The court reviewed important evidence such as the initial age assessment, together with statements from claimant’s supporting witnesses and the errors of the Italian authorities’ recordkeeping and concluded that the appellant was in fact a minor.

The proposed deportation of the applicants to Iraq would not violate Article 3 ECHR, either based on the general situation of violence in Iraq, or on the basis of past serious violence and threats that occurred in 2008.

The operation of an effective legal system for the detection, prosecution and punishment of acts constituting persecution or serious harm and access to such system by the claimant may not, in a given case, amount to protection. Article 7(2) of the Qualfication Directive is non-prescriptive in nature. The duty imposed on states to take “reasonable steps” imports the concepts of margin of appreciation and proportionality.

Discrepancies within evidence brought before the decision maker does not eschew the duty upon said decision maker to investigate the authenticity of the document. A person’s age is to be taken into account when evaluating evidential inconsistencies.

When relying on internal relocation a thorough assessment of all available evidence must be undertaken, including personal circumstances pertaining to the applicant. 

This case concerned the risk of violation of Article 3 for the proposed deportation to Iraq of a single female who was a member of the Mandaean religious minority.

 In its previous judgment the Court had found that there would be no violation, provided that the applicant was returned to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The case was struck out unanimously by the Grand Chamber pursuant to Article 37 § 1 ECHR given that the applicant had been granted a permanent residence permit in Sweden. 

In order to ensure that the state is capable of providing protection, the EU Qualification Directive stipulates that a state security system must be guaranteed and also requires an examination of the special circumstances of the individual case.

The case concerns an appeal of an Algerian woman to the Council of State, against a decision taken on the 17 June 2013 by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), who rejected the appeal against the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Person’s (OFPRA) decision concerning the applicant’s application for asylum.  

The Council of State annulled the decision of the CNDA, stating that before finding the existence of a reasonable possibility for the applicant to find internal protection in another region of her country of origin, the Court should have looked into which part of the Algerian territory the applicant could, in all safety, access, settle, exist and lead a normal family life without the fear of being persecuted or being exposed to the risk of serious violence from her ex-husband.

The internal protection alternative is not only possible when the security situation in the proposed area is so poor that the threshold of serious harm would be met, but also when the applicant cannot reasonably be expected to settle down in a designated area. In order to establish the latter it is not enough to hypothetically assume that the applicant can arrange the housing by himself and take care of his social and economic security or that as a young man he could find work and survive. It is necessary to determine whether in the place of IPA, economic and social existence is assured at least to the extent that the threshold for a violation of Article 3 of the Convention is not met.  

The Voivodeship Administrative Court found that the conflict in Ukraine is not an armed conflict as defined in the provisions  relating to the grant of subsidiary protection. Even if the applicant was attacked by some persons he did not know, his obligation was to seek assistance in his country of origin, even if obtaining assistance would seem illusory and not realistic.

Granting refugee status is not justified by the living conditions or economic situation of the applicant, but only by the existing fear of persecutions in the country of origin. The state and regional authorities help internally displaced persons (IDPs) in organizing a new life undertake all efforts to ensure housing and assistance to IDPs from the southern and eastern part of the country in western and central Ukraine