Case summaries

Where there has been an incomplete transposition, precise and unconditional provisions of the Asylum Procedures Directive may be directly relied upon by foreigners present on French territory. This is, in particular, the case with the provisions of Article 10(1), which state that asylum seekers should be given timely information concerning the procedure which they must follow, and in a language which that they can be reasonably thought to understand. Under Article 34 of the same Directive, these provisions apply equally in the case of a subsequent application.

Where national authorities responsible for examining asylum applications breach the duty of confidentiality, this can of itself create conditions exposing an asylum seeker to persecution within the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

If a subsequent application for international protection is submitted, the administrative authority must evaluate whether the applicant has presented any new facts that, through no fault of the applicant, had not been the subject of examination in the previous proceeding. Otherwise, the application is inadmissible and the proceedings must be stopped.

The final determination by an administrative court which quashed a decision returning an individual and determining the country of return on the grounds that the individual had substantiated the fear of persecution in the country of return, necessitated the admissibility before the asylum courts of an application for the matter to be re-examined. Based on this judgment, the National Asylum Court (CNDA) therefore had to re-examine all the facts submitted to it for determination.

An acceptance by Poland to take back the applicants was invalid because the Austrian Federal Asylum Office failed to inform Poland of the fact that the applicants have the status of subsidiary protection in Austria. As long as the applicants have this status a Dublin procedure is impossible because they have a legal stay in Austria and cannot be expelled.

In the opinion of the appellate court, one of the conditions required under Section 19(1)(i) of the Asylum Act for ruling that there is no need to adjudicate was not fulfilled. Despite the existence of a final decision dismissing the application as manifestly unfounded, it was not possible to agree with the opinion of the administrative authorities, as upheld by the Regional Court, that the facts had not changed substantially.

The applicant sought to rely on her Islamic proxy marriage to her husband, a recognised refugee in Ireland, to resist removal to the UK under the Dublin Regulations. Her application for judicial review failed as she was held to have forfeited her right under Article 7 of the Dublin II Regulation due to delay on her part in asserting that right.

The applicant was not permitted to raise a new ground of claim based on her asserted homosexuality, when she had had numerous opportunities to raise this ground of claim earlier.  The applicant was however granted leave to apply for judicial review, upon the Judge noting a factual error that had tainted the State’s earlier credibility assessment. 

The applicant applied to the Minister to be readmitted to the asylum system many years after he had made a first application for refugee status which had been refused for non-attendance at a refugee interview. There was no new claim as such nor was there any new evidence to support the application. The Court found that the Minister was only required to decide whether what was adduced was ‘new’. The Minister’s obligation was not altered by the fact that the original application had not been fully processed but had been abandoned by the applicant and deemed withdrawn. An applicant is not entitled to exploit his own failure to prosecute his original application in order to compel the Minister to consent to what is, in effect a reopening of the original claim with no new evidence, argument elements or findings. The Court also found that Art 32 of the Procedures Directive did not assist the applicant and, in any event, there was no claim of ‘direct effect’ made on his behalf.

The General Secretary of the Ministry of Public Order, having had an application for asylum referred back to it, considered whether the submitted evidence was “new and crucial”. If so, an ab initio examination of the application would be ordered. Failure to give notification of an act does not affect its validity, but only the start of the deadline for submitting an application for its annulment. The copy of the Turkish Government Gazette which promulgated the decision regarding withdrawal of the Applicant's nationality, was new and crucial evidence. There was no justification for refusing the request for an ab initio examination of the Applicant's circumstances, nor for rejecting his application to remain in the country on humanitarian grounds.