Case summaries

Application for annulment of a decision by the Minister of Public Order 

The case addressed the absence of procedural guarantees in the context of appointing a Commissioner and assessing the applicant’s level of maturity with regard to the need for special treatment of an unaccompanied minor.

The lack of personal persecution of an alien applicant does not preclude the recognition of refugee status if it is shown that there is an objective and well-founded fear of individual persecution in the applicant's country.

The Court found that the decision of the Minister for Public Order was improperly reasoned in that itfailed to comply with the Administration's obligations to take into account the particular circumstances of the case, to consider the merits of the applicant's claims based on objective evidence, to conform with procedural guarantees when assessing applications by unaccompanied minors, and to interpret the applicant's claims within the true intended meaning of the words used. It found that the Administration had failed to investigate the applicant's risk of persecution on the grounds of his racial origins and membership of (participation in) a particular social group (young male Hazara) in view of the prevailing conditions in his country.  The contested decision was also defective because of a failure to examine the existence of conditions for protection on humanitarian grounds.  

The fact that a party to proceedings has an unknown residence must always be proven in a credible manner, as must the exact determination of an address of residence in the territory of the Slovak Republic, and this obligation rests with the Court, which must exhaust all possibilities in determining whether the participant’s address really is unknown, or whether his address is other than the one known to the Court. Everyone has the right to have their case heard in court in their presence and to be able to comment on all of the evidence (Article 38(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, Article 48(2) of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic).

The interview report established by an officer of a Prefecture is admissible evidence even if it has not been signed and was conducted without the assistance of an interpreter. When an asylum applicant denies having made statements recorded in that report, he must provide evidence. In this case, the applicant did not provide evidence that he had not crossed Italy and, in a written letter addressed to the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, he even mentioned having crossed Italy.

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.

Application for annulment of a decision by the Minister of Public Order 

The case concerned deportation of a recognized refugee (Articles 32 and 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees) after a conviction for a criminal offence under common law. Final conviction for a particularly serious crime is not sufficient legitimate justification for an act of deportation.; instead, the Administration is required to issue a specific ruling that the convicted refugee, given the circumstances under which he committed the offence and his personality, is thereafter a risk to the community as a whole to such an extent that his stay in Greece is no longer tolerable and that his immediate removal from the country is required.

A threat to the legal interests of public order does not constitute a reason to revoke refugee status as this is not explicitly referred to in the reasons for terminating refugee status in accordance with Article 1C of the 1951 Convention. Furthermore, it falls within the competence of the Council of State to annul a ruling, issued by relying on Articles 32 and 33 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which involves the deportation of an alien who has been recognized as having refugee status under the said international Convention and who continues to have refugee status.

The case also considered the lack of competence of the body which issued the contested decision (General Secretary of the Ministry of Public Order instead of the competent Minister for Public Order). 

The seven day detention of a ‘temporarily admitted’ asylum seeker under the fast-track procedure was non-arbitrary and consistent with Article 5(1), but the 76 hour delay in providing the individual with the real reasons for his detention did not satisfy the promptness requirement of Article 5(2).

The applicant lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the decision issued by the High National Court refusing refugee status. The applicant challenged the decision on the grounds that the right to legal assistance, representation and to the assistance of an interpreter had been violated.

Application for annulment of a decision by the Minister of Public Order

This case concerned the interpretation of Presidential Decree 61/1999 in light of Directive 2004/83/EC andexamined the reasoning of the Administration's decision in an application for recognition as a refugee, in an appeal for annulment. The minutes of the Advisory Committee should cite not only the interested party's claims but also the content of the questions put by members of the Committee and the alien's responses, as well as a detailed assessment of the claims and of any documentation or other evidence which may have been submitted. There is an obligation on the members of the Committee to deliver a reasoned judgment on the credibility of the asylum seeker. 

This case examines the differences between the procedure for examining a claim for asylum and the procedure for examining the application of exclusion clauses.

The asylum procedure is a specific procedure as the applicants do not have knowledge of the Czech language. If an applicant submits documents in a language other than Czech it must be considered if it is the applicant or the Ministry of Interior who is responsible for providing a translation.