Case summaries

The fact that one of the grounds for requesting asylum was to legalise residency in the Czech Republic was not sufficient in itself to allow the application to be deemed unfounded.

The Ministry of Interior must address all factual statements made, even if not formally named as grounds for the asylum application.

This Judicial Review concerned the way in which the Minister for Justice should assess applications for subsidiary protection and, in particular, whether the duty to ‘co-operate’ with the applicant  referred to in Art 4.1 of the Qualification Directive 2004/83/EC means that the decision maker must communicate matters of concern to the applicant before making a final decision. As there appeared to be a conflict between the Irish and Dutch interpretations of Art 4.1, and uncertainty as to the true meaning of the phrase ‘in co-operation with’ the Court (Hogan J) referred a question to the CJEU.

The applicant could not substantiate the individual elements of his claim with respect to his well-founded fear of a blood feud; however, he was able to satisfy the criteria for subsidiary protection. As a result of the armed conflict that was ongoing in the respective province in his country of origin (Ghazni, Afghanistan), the high intensity of the indiscriminate violence was deemed to be sufficient to be a threatening factor to the applicant’s life. As a result, the criteria of subsidiary protection were fulfilled.

The question of whether the current situation in Iraq is an internal armed conflict (nationwide or regionally) according to Section 60 (7) (2) Residence Act/Art. 15 (c) Qualification Directive was left open. Even if one assumes that such a conflict takes place, subsidiary protection is only to be granted if the applicant is exposed to a serious and individual threat to life or physical integrity “in the course of” such a conflict. This cannot be established regarding the applicant in the present case.

The situation which prevails today in some geographical areas of Somalia, in particular in and around Mogadishu, must be seen as a situation of generalised violence resulting from a situation of internal armed conflict, in the meaning of Article L.712-1 c) Ceseda [which transposes Article 15 (c) of the Qualification Directive].

The Court found that the province of Ghazni, Afghanistan was still unstable and unsafe for the local population due to the presence of an internal armed conflict. However the security situation in Kabul had not deteriorated to the extent to be classified as an internal armed conflict.

The case concerned an appeal against a decision of the Ministry of Interior (MOI) to refuse a claim for subsidiary protection status on the grounds that the applicant was excluded as a result of his activities, which were considered ‘contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.’ The appeal was successful, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) held that exclusion clauses must be interpreted restrictively, that there must be ‘serious grounds to believe’ such acts were carried out and notwithstanding the exclusion clause, non refoulement obligations under Art 3 of the ECHR apply.

The applicant based her claim for asylum on the threats and human rights violations arising as a result of her common-law husband’s political activities and the authorities’ suspicion of the applicant’s support of the opposition party. Refugee status was refused. The Administrative Court found that the applicant had failed to establish a risk of persecution based on her imputed political opinion. The Administrative Court held, that to return the applicant to her country of origin where she has experienced serious human rights violations, in the final stages of pregnancy or with a newborn child, without any social networks to fall back on, taken into account together, would form a real threat of serious harm suffering inhuman or degrading treatment as laid out in Art 88 of the Aliens Act.

A young couple (both minors) were eligible for subsidiary protection as they risked being the victims of honour-related violence in their country of origin. The Migration Court of Appeal concluded that in this particular case, it would be unreasonable to ask the applicants to have sought the protection of domestic authorities.

This case concerned service of the initial negative decision against an asylum application where the notice was served on the foreign applicant asylum seeker without specifying the language in which the applicant was informed of its content.  The court rejected an application for suspensive effect of the decision rejecting the asylum application in view of the pleas used by the applicant – of Palestinian origin – that he left his country for economic reasons, since there is no evidence that there is a risk of persecution should he return to Palestine, nor have any of the conditions for asylum on humanitarian grounds been met. The possible disruption to the lifestyle the applicant has created for himself whilst working in Greece does not constitute a reason to suspend any of the acts which form part of the asylum application examination procedure.