Case summaries

The Migration Court of Appeal returned the case to the Migration Court for investigation of whether there is an internal protection alternative for the man from Afghanistan. The Court found that an internal protection alternative must always be investigated as part of the protection assessment.

Based solely on a 2012 UNHCR report, subsidiary protection was granted to the applicant as an individual risk to his life was recognised.

The case concerns discrimination against a refugee and his post-flight wife in the enjoyment of their right to family life because she was not allowed to join him in the UK. This was owed to more restrictive rules for the reunification of the spouses of refugees in comparison to workers or students, or to refugees married at the time of the flight.

One cannot accept the position that an Applicant must in every case show that he or she has exhausted all available forms of protection in his or her country of origin. The condition of absence of state protection must not in every case be understood to mean an absolute obligation to exhaust all domestic procedures. The fact that the police, as the Applicant has shown, have no basis upon which to launch an investigation would suggest that the Applicant did apply to the state authorities for protection but that no protection was granted.

A Somalian citizen, claiming to be from Mogadishu, had applied for international protection due to the lack of  safety in his/her native country and human rights violations infringements in Mogadishu.  According to his/her language assessment, he/she clearly didn’t speak the Somalian spoken in Southern Somalia but manifestly spoke the Somalian spoken in Northern Somalia.  The language assessment alone was not considered to be enough proof of domicile but taking into account his/her scant local knowledge of Mogadishu and partially contradictory accounts, it was deemed that he/she in fact was from Northern Somalia, Somaliland.  According to the report, the appellant and his/her underage children whom he/she brought along to Finland were not in need of international protection.

The legality of an applicant’s detention in a Centre for Identification and Expulsion (C.I.E.), even where this satisfies legal requirements, should be assessed in the light of the compatibility of the applicant’s state of health with the type of assistance and support that the centre is able to provide.

An asylum seeker cannot be considered to have ‘absconded’ within the meaning of the Dublin II Regulation because they failed to respond to a request to come to a police station in order to regularise their situation as an asylum seeker.

This was a decision of the Polish Refugee Board of 31 January 2013 to uphold that part of the decision of the Head of the Polish Office for Foreigners which concerned refusal to accord refugee status and to overturn the remainder of the decision as well as to grant subsidiary protection.

In the course of criminal proceedings conducted against a foreigner in Poland it was revealed to Iranian consular officials that the foreigner concerned was being held at the Centre for Foreigners seeking refugee status in Dębak. This could have been tantamount to disclosing that the foreigner was applying for refugee status in Poland. Although it is not known whether the foreigner would have suffered repression from the authorities upon returning to Iran, such a possibility cannot be excluded. This circumstance does not fall within the concept of particular social group. However, considering the scale of human rights abuses in Iran and the unpredictability of the regime, there exists a real threat of torture or of inhuman or degrading treatment.

In order to determine whether an Applicant is exposed to a significant, specific risk stemming from an armed conflict, reference should be made to the actual target location of the foreign national upon return in the case of a localised armed conflict. This is often the region of origin of the Applicant. If the region of origin cannot be considered as the target location due to the risk facing the claimant, the latter may only be referred to another region in the country subject to the requirements of Article 8 of the Qualification Directive.

With regard to the evaluation as to whether extraordinary circumstances exist which do not come under the direct responsibility of the target deportation state and which prohibit the deporting state from deporting the foreign national according to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, reference should be made to the target deportation state as a whole in order to verify whether these circumstances exist in the location in which the deportation ends. 

In the case of individuals who are eligible for subsidiary protection according to the Qualification Directive, the limitation of residence represents an unauthorised limitation on the free movement of persons according to Article 32 of the Qualification Directive if it is based solely on social welfare grounds.