Case summaries
Rejection of the re-application of Lebanese nationals as inadmissible "subsequent applications" under Directive 2013/32/EU.
The Federal Administrative Court found that Art. 3 of the Qualification Directive does not hinder Member States to allow parents and siblings, fulfilling the requirements for family members under Art. 2(j) of the Directive, to change their status of subsidiary protection into a refugee status which they derive from their minor sponsor.
With regard to the granting of subsidiary protection, the existence of real risks to the rights under Art. 2, 3 ECHR must be examined, which includes the obligation to consider ongoing developments on the basis of available information. If a deterioration of the security situation is disregarded, this could be seen as arbitrariness.
The Court decides that the relevant point in time to assess the ‘minor’ status of a beneficiary of international protection under the Qualification Directive is the date on which the applicant makes an (informal) application for international protection.
The Court decides that the notion of ‘family member’ under the Qualification Directive does not require an actual resumption of family life between the parent who benefited international protection and the child. Furthermore, the rights of a family member to claim the benefits under the Qualification Directive persist after the beneficiary of subsidiary protection reaches the age of majority, for the duration of the period of validity of the residence permit granted to them.
Article 40(2) of the Asylum Procedures Directive does not distinguish between initial and subsequent applications for international protection. As such, Member States should not treat the assessment of evidence submitted in subsequent applications different from evidence submitted in a first application. Any document submitted by the applicant in support of his application for international protection must be considered, and the inability to authenticate that document cannot justify the exclusion of such a document from the examination.
The assessment of the existence of indiscriminate violence under Article 15 (c) of the Qualification Directive may not be based exclusively on a quantitative assessment of casualties and population ratios. A comprehensive appraisal of all the circumstances of the individual case, and in particular those which characterise the situation of the applicant’s country of origin, is required.
National legislation that grants the possibility of rejecting an application made by a third-country national or a stateless person for international protection, whose previous application seeking refugee status in another Member State implementing the Dublin III Regulation had been rejected, is precluded under Article 33(2)(d) of Directive 2013/32 read in conjunction with Article 2(q) thereof.
Courts must establish the current situation of the region from which the complainant originates and relate it to the individual situation of the complainant in the grounds of the decision.
In the case of an Afghan family, the lower instance court did not sufficiently consider the security situation in the complainants’ country of origin, in particular with regard to the situation for minors. Thereby the court violated the right to equal treatment among foreigners.
By not considering the argument on the applicants’ political conviction in Belgium and by avoiding answering the argument requesting a report on the Turkish authorities’ influence in Belgium, the Council for Alien Law Litigation failed to give a complete legal reasoning.
In the case of an Afghan Shia Hazara applicant, the Belgian Council for Alien Litigation considered that the request for international protection was based on several sources of fear, which must be analysed in combination with each other, forming a cluster of concordant evidence.
The Council granted the applicant refugee status.