Case summaries

An Eritrean national claimed refugee status in Switzerland as a result of having allegedly been beaten and tortured for his attempt to escape from military service. His attempt to rely on Article 3 of the Convention of Human Rights to avoid an expulsion order issued by the Swiss authorities was denied as a result of his failure to corroborate his story with factual evidence, inconsistencies in his account and the fact that risk of ill-treatment on his return to Eritrea could be mitigated. 

The applicant, an ethnic Al-Bagal and Sunni Muslim from Moraya, Nyala, Darfur, Sudan feared imprisonment or execution by the Sudanese authorities. According to the applicant’s account he had been imprisoned for alleged political activities for a total of 18 months during which he was tortured. Subsequently, he was regularly harassed by the Intelligence Service.

The Danish Immigration Service rejected the asylum application in July 2016.

On 29 November 2016, the Refugee Appeals Board upheld the decision of the Danish Immigration Service. The majority of the Board did not find to a sufficient degree that a torture examination would be of essential importance for deciding the case.

The Refugee Appeals Board resumed the case based on a forensic report presented by the applicant. The Board now referring to the forensic report accepted that the applicant had been exposed to torture. The Board thus found that the applicant, to a sufficient degree, had rendered probable that he, if returning to Sudan, was at risk of persecution and granted the applicant refugee status according to the Danish Aliens Act Art. 7 (1).

This case primarily dealt with the lawfulness of a prolonged period of detention in the context of whether there was a reasonable prospect of deportation and also of evidence of both current mental illness and previous torture and trafficking.

When deciding whether refugee status should be available , one must not only consider any pre-persecution but also post-flight circumstances. Judged  on a forward looking basis of persecution of political enemies within Syrian territory, upon return to Syria there continues to be a danger of individual persecution including human rights violations by reason of belonging to a certain group. 

The case concerned an application for judicial review of the decisions made on behalf of the Secretary of State to transfer the applicants to Malta, on the basis that such jurisdiction was the proper place for considering the applicants’ asylum claims. The applicants argued that such transfer would violate their rights under Article 18 of the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU Charter) to have their asylum application determined within a reasonable time and on the basis of a fair procedure, as the Maltese asylum system had several shortcomings and contains procedures that are illusory or too slow. Dismissing the application, the Tribunal concluded that there was no evidence to support the argument that the applicants’ Article 18 rights would be violated if they were transferred to Malta. 

The applicant appealed against a deportation order on account of the high risk that he faced of being subject to treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR in the case of return to Russia.

The detention of an asylum-seeker who claimed he had been tortured because of his sexual orientation was unlawful in part.

The European Court of Human Rights found that extraditing a Kyrgyz national of Uzbek ethnic origin from Russia to Kyrgyzstan would give rise to inhumane and degrading treatment prohibited by article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It was also found that the repeated delays by the Russian authorities in hearing the applicant’s appeals against his detention in Russia constituted a violation of his article 5 para 4 rights to a speedy judicial decision on the lawfulness of the applicant’s detention between January 2013 and January 2014.

The case examined the allegations of the applicant that his proposed expulsion to Turkey would place him at risk of inhuman and degrading treatment and would jeopardize his physical and health integrity.

The Court found no violation of the articles 2 and 3 of the Convention and held the claimed violations of articles 6 and 8 to be unfounded.

In this judgement, the Court held that there was a violation of article 3 of the Convention concerning the detention conditions of the applicant at the premises of the executive subcommittee of the Thessaloniki foreign police. There was also a violation of article 5 para 1 (f) concerning the duration of his detention and para 4 with regards to the judicial review of his detention.