Case summaries
This case concerned subsequent applications for asylum. The Constitutional Court ruled that Art 50, (3) and (4) of the Belgian Aliens Law (current Art 51/8) should be interpreted in such a way that the possibility to lodge an appeal for suspension of that decision is only excluded in cases where the following three conditions are met:
(1) the applicant has filed an earlier asylum application that was refused;
(2) the applicant has had the opportunity to appeal this decision and to exhaust his legal remedies;
(3) the applicant is making an identical asylum application without submitting any new elements.
The five applicants were asylum seekers from Sri Lanka of Tamil ethnicity whose requests were denied in the UK and had been returned to Sri Lanka. The Court rejected their allegations that a breach of Art. 3 due to risk of ill-treatment as well as of a breach of Art. 13 because of ineffective judicial remedy had been committed by the UK.
The Court found that in the event of the United Kingdom Secretary of State’s decision to extradite a fugitive indicted of murder in the United States being implemented, there would be a violation of Article 3 due to the possibility of his conviction of a death sentence, and the treatment and punishment he would face on death row in Virginia.
The ECtHR held that the 1980 UK Immigration Rules breached ECHR Article 14 taken together with Article 8 as they discriminated on the ground of sex against three female applicants settled in the UK who wished to be joined by their spouses. It was easier for men settled in the UK to be joined by a non-national spouse than women but no objective and reasonable justification was found for this difference of treatment.