Case summaries
The proposed transfer of the Sudanese asylum seeker from Austria to Hungary would not constitute a violation of Article 3 of the ECHR.
This case concerns the interpretation of Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 when an unaccompanied child submits more than one asylum application in two Member States and does not have any family members present in the territories of the Member States. In such circumstances the CJEU held that the responsible Member State is the one in which the child is present after having lodged an asylum application there.
Use of the sovereignty clause in the Dublin Regulation is not conditional on the initially responsible Member State not responding to a request for transfer. When it is apparent from UNHCR documents that the responsible Member State is in breach of EU asylum laws, there is no obligation to request UNHCR to present its views on a particular transfer.
The political activities carried out in Belgium by the Syrian Applicant justified granting him refugee status; he should not be confined to the subsidiary protection granted due to the indiscriminate violence generated by the armed conflict in Syria.
The Council for Alien Law Litigation confirmed that those who enjoy subsidiary protection are equivalent to recognised refugees, for the purposes of family reunification. This means that they are exempted from additional conditions in relation to housing, health insurance, and means of subsistence provided that the application for family reunification is submitted within one year and the family ties existed before the arrival in Belgium of the reuniting person (who enjoys subsidiary protection). This is despite the fact that those who enjoy subsidiary protection do not fall within the scope of application of the Family Reunification Directive.
The Court recognised the Applicant as a refugee because he would be at risk of persecution due to his political opinions upon returning to his home country.
The Applicant had been forced to leave the UNRWA’s area of operations. The facts that had led to his departure from Lebanon justified ending his exclusion from the application of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention.
Rather than dismissing the application, the Court recognised the subsidiary protection status of the Applicant, as his/her return to the country of origin would lead to the risk of serious harm (inhuman, degrading treatment or indiscriminate violence).