Case summaries

HIV-related marginalisation and discrimination can reach the threshold of seriousness to establish persecution but is not sufficient to be granted international protection. In order to benefit from international protection, it must be established that there are personal reasons for a well-founded fear of being persecuted due to HIV-contamination. In this context, seropositivity can be regarded as being part of a social group, which is a valid persecution ground.  In the case at hand, the Court took into account aspects of vulnerability which are unrelated to HIV-status.

The judgment concerns the scope of Article 21 of Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 with regards to derogation from protection from refoulement and the possibility to revoke a residence permit issued to a refugee pursuant to Article 24 of said Directive. 

The judgment concerns the status of military deserters under the Qualification Directive (2004/83/EC) and the definition to be accorded to persecutory acts following on from a refusal to perform military service. Whilst the definition of military service is to include support staff the CJEU has held that there must be a sufficient link between the asylum seeker’s actions and the preparation or eventual commission of war crimes.  

The individual must establish with sufficient plausibility that his unit is highly likely to commit war crimes and that there exists a body of evidence capable of credibly establishing that the specific military service will commit war crimes. Moreover, desertion is the only way to avoid participation in war crimes and disproportionate and discriminatory acts should be assessed in light of a State’s domestic prerogatives.  

LGBTI asylum seekers (1) may be members of particular social group, (2) cannot be expected to conceal or restrain their expression of sexual orientation to reduce risk of persecution. (3) All criminalisation does not per se amount to persecution, but imprisonment actually applied does.

This cases concerns the interpretation of Article 2(c) and Article 9(1)(a) of the Qualification Directive in a case where the two Applicants are Pakistani nationals who are members of the Ahmadi religious community and fear persecution there on the basis of religion.

When establishing the necessary “density of danger” in an internal armed conflict within the meaning of Section 60 (7) (2) Residence Act/Art. 15 (c) Qualification Directive, it is not sufficient to quantitatively determine the number of victims in the conflict. It is necessary to carry out an “evaluating overview” of the situation, which takes into account the situation of the health system. However, this issue was not decisive in the present case, as the applicant would only face a low risk of being seriously harmed.

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).

This Case concluded that membership of a terrorist organisation is not in itself a sufficient ground for exclusion from refugee status. 

These joined cases concerned two Applicants who were denied protection in Germany on the basis of the exclusion provisions in the Qualification Directive.  Upon appeal the German Courts found that even if they were excluded under the Qualification Directive they may still entitled to the right of asylum recognised under Article 16A of the Grundgesetz. The CJEU, in examining Article 12, the exclusion provision in the Qualification Directive, found that the fact a person was a member of an organisation which is on the EU Common Position List 2001/931/CFSP due to its involvement in terrorist acts, does not automatically constitute a serious reason to exclude that person. Exclusion is not conditional on the person concerned representing a present danger to the host Member State or on an assessment of proportionality.

For the purposes of the first sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2004/83, a person receives protection or assistance from an agency of the United Nations other than UNHCR when that person has actually availed himself of that protection or assistance.

Article 1D of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Article 12(1)(a) of the Directive refers, merely excludes from the scope of that Convention those persons who are at present receiving protection or assistance from an organ or agency of the United Nations other than UNHCR. It follows from the clear wording of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention that only those persons who have actually availed themselves of the assistance provided by UNRWA come within the clause excluding refugee status set out therein, which must, as such, be construed narrowly and cannot therefore also cover persons who are or have been eligible to receive protection or assistance from that agency.