Case summaries

The applicant lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court challenging the decision issued by the High National Court refusing refugee status. The applicant challenged the decision on the grounds that the right to legal assistance, representation and to the assistance of an interpreter had been violated.

The Court held that the conditions for offering the Applicants temporary judicial protection had been satisfied, taking into consideration that the Asylum Committee had rejected the asylum-seeker's claims as being unsubstantiated without assessing his credibility, and also because the decision which rejected the application for asylum only vaguely referred to the prevailing situation in Iran.

In its assessment of real risk of serious harm the CALL took into consideration the psychological circumstances of the applicant. The CALL considered that the seriousness of the applicant’s past traumatic experiences (as a child soldier) had left such psychological marks on him that a future forced enrolment in the army would be psychologically unbearable for him and would, in his case, amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

It was decided that it was not necessary to provide a medical examination before admitting an individual to a detained asylum fast track procedure, but the failure to provide a medical examination within a prescribed time and to report an allegation of torture rendered continuing detention unlawful.

Foreign citizens with refugee status have the same rights as Italian citizens as regards social assistance and related rights such as, for example, payment of attendance allowance under L.18/80.

The Council of State ruled that in support of an application for subsidiary protection a mere reference to the general situation in the country of origin is in principle insufficient, and that the applicant needs to make a link between that general situation and his/her personal circumstances.

A HIV-infected person cannot be granted a residence permit in Sweden on medical grounds if health care and medicines are available in the home country, even if the person has financial difficulties and has to pay for treatment himself/herself. The economic consequences of doing so for Sweden must be taken into consideration in the decision. Further, that an assessment of whether an applicant risks being prevented from getting adequate care because of their political opinions should be made in the context of examining the need for protection and not as part of an assessment of whether there are any particularly distressing circumstances.

The House of Lords test in Januzi (see separate summary) for assessing internal protection was approved.  In assessing whether the proposed area of internal relocation was unreasonable or unduly harsh it was an error of law to require that the circumstances would result in a breach of Art 3 of the ECHR or that the circumstances will be worse than the circumstances experienced by anyone else in that country.

This case concerned subsequent applications for asylum. The CALL ruled that the principle of res judicata (matter already judged) is not applicable in a case where the subsequent application is not based on the same set of facts as the earlier application.

This case was the first application of Art 10 of the Qualification Directive in the UK to a case involving human trafficking. The Tribunal found that trafficking victims are capable of being members of a Particular Social Group and that both sub paragaphs of Art 10(d) must be satisfied.