Case summaries

In assessing asylum applications, national authorities are entitled to consider material contained in the files of third parties. In reviewing such cases, national courts will be under a duty to consider the same material. This does not conflict with the applicant’s right to confidentiality. 

The Court quashed the decision of the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) based on the fact that it did not meet its duty to actively cooperate in drawing up the facts that support the claim of the applicant.

The Court quashed the decision of the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) and ordered a new procedure because of the failure to thoroughly examine every claim presented by the Claimant and the incorrect application of the res iudicata principle.

The decision of the Administrative Court Düsseldorf of January 8, 2016 - 23 L 3974 / 15.A, which ordered the removal of the complainant to Bulgaria, breaches his fundamental right under Article 3, paragraph 1 of Basic Law in its manifestation as a general prohibition on arbitrariness. The Administrative Court should have more closely scrutinised the newly available information on the situation pertaining to asylum seekers and persons with international protection status in Bulgaria.  The decision of the Administrative Court Düsseldorf is repealed and the case is referred back to the Administrative Court Düsseldorf.

The Court found a violation of Article 3 in relation to a subsequent application for asylum, which had been rejected on the basis that it contained no new elements indicating that the Applicants ran a real risk of being subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment on deportation to Russia. Because new information had in fact been provided, the national authorities were under an obligation to thoroughly review the information in order to assure themselves that the Applicants’ rights under Article 3 would be safeguarded.

A subsequent application is not admissible unless the interested party presents new facts or elements relating to his personnel situation or to the situation in his country of origin, out of which he could not have had knowledge of previously, and likely, if they have probative value, to modify the appreciation of the legitimacy or the credibility of the application of the interested party.

The director general of OFPRA was right to find that the elements that the applicants presented before him did not significantly increase the probability that they would meet the qualifying conditions to claim protection and that their subsequent applications were inadmissible, without having undertaken a hearing before making the decision on inadmissibility.

This case is concerned with whether the decision to deny the asylum application and the subsequently imposed entry ban were justified based on articles 1F(a)-(c). Under these provisions the Secretary of State can raise national security as a ‘serious ground’ for his decision if an element of ‘personal participation’ can be proven.

This case is concerned with whether the Secretary of State for Justice has discharged or breached his duty of care with regards to the risk of refoulement in an asylum application.

A person, with a well-founded fear, within the meaning of the Geneva Convention, of being harmed by their family if they return to their country of origin because they are a member of a particular social group and are unable to rely on effective protection from the state, may be entitled to claim refugee status.  

Termination of an applicant’s international protection status (ie where there is a change or termination of protection grounds) must be examined against the principle of non-refoulement, which ensures the right to a fair and efficient procedure in which the Asylum authority assesses if non-refoulement would be violated where protection ceases.

It results from the principle of non-refoulement that the applicant in proceedings on termination of subsidiary protection must have the possibility to state all the reasons for which subsidiary protection should not cease.

In the process of renewal of subsidiary protection all the guarantees provided by Article 18 of the Constitution (Prohibition of Torture) should be respected.

Legislation which limited the assessment of the competent authority in the subsidiary protection renewal procedure only to the grounds based on which an individual has been granted subsidiary protection, is inconsistent with the right set out in Article 18 of the Constitution.