Case summaries
This case concerned the revocation of asylum and refugee status in the case of a former official of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) (following the European Court of Justice case of Federal Republic of Germany v B (C-57/09) and D (C-101/09), 09 November 2010).
Refugee status was granted to the applicants (parents) because of their advocacy in Afghanistan for democracy, separation of state and religion, equality between men and women, and their membership of and support for the party “Comprehensive movement for democracy and progress in Afghanistan”. Refugee status was granted to their children because of their membership of a particular social group of “family”.
Threats by political opponents are to be considered as imminent persecution by non-State actors according to Art. 60 (1) sentence 4 (c) of the Residence Act in conjunction with Art. 6 (c) of the Qualification Directive. The Afghan State is unwilling and unable to grant protection against such persecution by non-State actors (Art 7 of the Qualification Directive).
The poor living conditions that the Applicants would face in the safe areas in Georgia meant they could not reasonably be expected to remain there. There was no feasible internal protection alternative
There was no serious reason, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Qualification Directive, to rule out with sufficient confidence that the risk of persecution, from which it is established that the applicant suffered, would not be repeated.
A former Chechen fighter was not excluded from refugee status as active participation in the Second Chechen War in itself does not constitute a war crime. The clashes that have taken place in Chechnya since 1999 represent an internal armed conflict according to Art. 8 of the ICC Statute.
The guidance in HJ (Iran) (see separate summary in this database) should be applied, by analogy, in cases where the applicant feared persecution on account of their religion. Consequently, the Tribunal had to consider the reason why an Ahmadi applicant for asylum had modified his behaviour by preaching only to people who would not put him at risk of persecution.
Following the decision of Abdulla et al. (C-175/08) of the European Court of Justice, revocation of refugee status presupposes that a significant and non-temporary change of circumstances has taken place. This is the case if the factors which formed the basis of the recognition of refugee status, may be regarded as having been permanently eradicated. The relevant standard of probability for the determination of the likelihood of future persecution is the same both for the recognition and the revocation of refugee status, i.e. a change in circumstances has to be assessed on the basis of whether there is still a "considerable" probability of persecution (change from former case law).
Refugee status was granted to an Algerian woman who was at risk of forced marriage due to membership of a particular social group.
Applying Art 4.4 of the Qualification Directive, the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL) held that the mere finding that persecution has ceased in the country of origin, without showing that there are no good reasons to consider that such persecution will not be repeated, is insufficient to reject an application for asylum.