Case summaries

Account must be taken of the evolution of the circumstances in the country of origin, from the moment of the application for international protection, until the moment when the Court has to take a decision.

In this instance, relying on the change of circumstances that has taken place in Ukraine since the Applicants introduced the demand, the Court grants subsidiary protection status to a Ukrainian family. The current international conflict taking place in Ukraine exposes them to a risk of  serious harm.

To determine whether there is a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ECHR in the context of expulsion, the Court analyses if the Applicant has presented substantial grounds on (i) whether he faces a real risk of ill-treatment or death in the country of destination, and (ii)whether the national authorities carried out an adequate assessment of the evidence. States have an obligation to analyse the risk ex propio motu when they are aware of facts that could expose an individual to the risk of treatment prohibited by Articles 2 and 3 ECHR.  If the domestic jurisdictions didn’t carry out a proper assessment, the Court analyses the risk on its own on the basis of the parties submissions, international reports and its own findings.

States have an obligation, under Article 5 § 1 ECHR, to act with due diligence and impose a reasonable period of detention pending expulsion. Article 5 § 4 ECHR is breached if detained individuals can’t obtain a revision of their detention before a domestic court. 

The conditions of detention amounted to a violation of Article 3, in so far as the applicant remained in isolation, in a container with inadequate natural light and ventilation, for a significant amount of time and without any consideration of alternatives. The applicant’s unnecessary placement in a part of the detention facility that was reserved for Covid-19 quarantine also exposed him to health risk.

The applicant’s detention was not lawful under Article 5 (1) ECHR, as it lasted for fourteen months, the authorities were aware that the deportation was not feasible and failed to pursue the matter with diligence. Article 34 was also violated due to irregularities in the manner that legal aid was provided to the applicant and the lack of confidentiality and support during his communication with the Court while he was in detention.

Member States are required to take due account of the best interests of the child before adopting a return decision accompanied by an entry ban, even where the person to whom that decision is addressed is not a minor but his or her father.

The absence of food provision raised an issue of Article 3 in respect of the first applicant, given his state of total dependency on the Hungarian government during his stay at the Röszke transit zone. The physical conditions of the container in which the family stayed in, the unsuitable facilities for children, irregularities in the provision of medical services, and the prolonged stay in the area amounted to a violation of Article 3 in respect of the applicant mother and the children.

The family’s stay at the Röszke transit zone amounted to deprivation of liberty due to, inter alia, the lack of any domestic legal provisions fixing the maximum duration of the applicants’ stay, the excessive duration of the applicants’ stay and the conditions in the transit zone. Their deprivation of liberty was unlawful under Article 5 (1), as there was no strictly defined statutory basis for the applicants’ detention and no formal decision complete with reasons for detention had been issued by the Hungarian authorities.

Article 5 (4) was also violated because he applicants did not have avenue in which the lawfulness of their detention could have been decided promptly by a court.

The Return Directive does not prevent a Member State from placing in administrative detention a third-country national residing illegally on its territory, in order to carry out the forced transfer of that national to another Member State in which that national has refugee status, where that national has refused to comply with the order to go to that other Member State and it is not possible to issue a return decision to him or her.

Article 4 ECHR requires that victims of trafficking are promptly identified as soon as there is credible suspicion of trafficking-related circumstances, regardless of whether the victims were able to identify and mention their experience.

To the extent that is possible, potential victims of trafficking can only be prosecuted following an assessment of whether they have been trafficked. Prosecutorial service should be aware of protocols around trafficking cases.

The lack of an assessment of whether the applicants had been trafficked prevented them from obtaining evidence that were fundamentally related to their defence in violation of their right to a fair trial under Article 6. The domestic judicial procedure was also contrary to Article 6 insofar as the applicants’ subsequent claims regarding their trafficking were not adequately assessed.

In the context of cessation of refugee status under Article 11 (1)(e), the change in circumstances must remedy the reasons which led to the recognition of refugee status; a country of origin’s ability or inability to demonstrate that it can provide protection from acts of persecution constitutes ‘a crucial element’ in this assessment.

Mere social and financial support to the third country national is inherently incapable of either preventing acts of persecution or of detecting, prosecuting and punishing such acts and, therefore, cannot be regarded as providing the protection required by Article 11(1)(e). In order to determine whether the third-country national still has a well-founded fear of persecution, the existence of protection against acts of persecution should be considered when examining the change in circumstances.

When analysing if protection from UNRWA has ceased (Article 12(1)(a) Directive 2011/95), account must be taken of the possibility for the individual to concretely access effective protection in any of the other fields within UNRWA area of operations.

Assistance from the Agency must be considered as maintained when an individual has left UNRWA area of operations from a field where he couldn’t obtain effective protection, if the person had previously voluntarily left a field where he could access UNRWA’s assistance, even though he could reasonably foresee, according to the information available for him at the moment of departure, that he wouldn’t be able to receive effective protection from the Agency in the field he was travelling to, or return to the field of origin in the short term.

The automatic application of domestic provisions regulating expulsion following a criminal conviction may amount to a violation of Article 8 where the impact of the removal measure on the family and isses of proportionality are not sufficiently assessed. In this assessment, the best interests of the child should bear significant weight.