Case summaries

The High Court found that the Tribunal failed to ask itself the correct legal questions when assessing the issue of state protection in the applicants’ country of origin.

In specific, the High Court found that the Tribunalfailed to apply the correct approach to the ‘state protection test’ found in section 31 of the International Protection Act, 2015, by not seeking to establish whether an effective system of protection is in place, which is non-temporary in nature and which involves the taking of reasonable steps to protect those who otherwise faced a real risk of persecution or serious harm.

National authorities are best placed to assess the credibility of asylum claimants.

The ill-treatment of people of non-Arab ethnic origin in Sudan is not systematic. Therefore, when the personal circumstances of an applicant that may create a risk of persecution are insufficiently substantiated, the applicant’s removal to Sudan will not give rise to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the removal of families belonging to the Sikh religious minority to Afghanistan would not constitute a violation of Article 3 ECHR, as the applicants’ situation failed to reach the severity threshold required by this Article. Despite the fact that the Sikh community suffers from intimidation and intolerance within the Afghan society, the Court did not find that this group is the target of a practice of a systematic practice of ill-treatment, despite any difficulties they may be facing in the country.

A Dublin transfer to Bulgaria is annulled due to the vulnerability of the applicant combined with the risk of inadequate psychological treatment in Bulgaria, the applicant’s first country of asylum, and the lack sufficient individual guarantees in case of Dublin transfer.

The fact that an asylum applicant has already been persecuted in the past or has already suffered serious harm is a serious indication of the well-founded fear of the claimant, or of the real risk of suffering serious harm, unless there is good reason to believe that this persecution or serious harm will not happen again.

When an applicant has suffered female genital mutilation in her country of origin, there is a rebuttable presumption that she will again be the victim of such persecution because of her membership in the social group of Ivorian women.

Member States are required to revoke subsidiary protection on the basis of art. 19(1), if they find out that the conditions that led to the granting of status were never met, regardless of whether the incorrect assessment of facts leading to the status is imputable exclusively to the national authority itself

Extradition to Iran to face criminal charges would risk a violation of Article 3 due to possible exposure to flogging under Iranian penal law. 

In assessing the credibility of a sexual orientation-related claim, personal circumstances have to be taken into account. That a person is not able to elaborate on his awareness and acceptance of his sexual orientation, is not sufficient to conclude that the applicant’s story lacks credibility, when the personal circumstances that explain this inability are considered credible.