Case summaries

In 8 joined cases, the Applicants’ deportation to Iraq would not violate Articles 2 or 3 due to the possibility of their internal relocation away from their former homes to other regions of Iraq.

The Court stated that the applicant’s fear of persecution and serious threat, related to assaults by her former spouse  are unfounded because the Court believes that the applicant has a reasonable possibility of internal asylum in another part of her country of origin. Consequently, the Court rejected the applicant’s appeal  against the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) decision refusing the grant of international protection).

The forced return of a Coptic Christian to Egypt would expose him to a risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR, but the processing of his asylum application through the fast-track procedure was not a violation Article 13 due to the almost 3 year delay in claiming asylum.

The CALL ruled that the discrimination or ill treatment suffered by homosexuals in Senegal did not amount to all homosexuals of Senegalese origin having reason to fear persecution in Senegal on the sole basis of their sexual orientation.   

The Court refused to give two Applicants, who had both been granted asylum by the Czech Republic, permission to seek judicial review of the Refugee Applications Commissioner’s (ORAC) decisions not to admit their asylum claims for consideration on the basis of section 17(4) of the Refugee Act 1996, and also refused similar relief sought in respect of subsequent Deportation Orders, which it was claimed were unlawful owing to the unlawfulness of the former decisions regarding the Applicants’ asylum claims.

The relevant section precludes the Minister from granting a declaration of refugee status to persons who already have asylum pursuant to the Geneva Convention, and whose reason for seeking a declaration in Ireland does not relate to a fear of persecution in that state.

The Court held that they had not provided sufficient evidence that they had suffered or feared persecution for a Convention reason, and neither had they shown that they had taken any steps to avail of the protection of the laws or courts of the Czech Republic, nor provided a reasonable explanation as to why they did not do so.

Both Applicants were also formally refused an extension of time within which to bring their proceedings on the basis that (a) the criteria for the extension of time had not been met and (b) the substantive merits of their applications were insufficient to ground their applications seeking judicial review, even if they had been within time.

Although same-sex conducts are not expressly criminalised and prosecuted in Gambia, the climate of intolerance, together with the actual treatment of LGBTI persons, shows that the applicant has a well-founded fear of persecution. 

Refugee status was recognised for a transgender woman from Pakistan because discrimination for reasons relevant to asylum as well as involuntary prostitution to earn a living are sufficiently serious to represent persecution within the meaning of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

Neither the Applicant, who was approximately nine years old at the time of the decision, nor her parents had submitted reasons for persecution specifically relevant to the Applicant in the proceedings at the court of first instance or in the appeal. Despite this, the Asylum Court reached the conclusion – amongst other things after a personal hearing of the Applicant – that the Applicant would be persecuted directly by the state or privately in Afghanistan owing to her membership of a particular social group and the religious-political attitude to which she would be subjected. In doing so the Asylum Court applied child specific considerations.

In addition, the Court stated that group persecution was to be assumed with regard to Afghan women.

Acts of a criminal nature cannot be equated with persecution within the meaning of grounds cited under the Convention. Public authorities in the country of origin, which the family of the foreignor did not contact, are supposed to provide protection against risks posed by individual citizens.

The European Court of Human Rights held that the expulsion of an Algerian national from Slovakia to Algeria, in contempt of an interim measure issued by the Court, was in violation of Articles 3, 13 and 34 of the Convention.