Case summaries

This is the subsequent Supreme Court ruling following the preliminary reference ruling by the CJEU in C-604/12 in relation to the examination of subsidiary protection within the asylum procedure in Ireland. The case also addresses the legality in EU law of the two stage procedure in Ireland and the lack of a single asylum procedure.

Where a foreign or stateless person is on the border and wants to apply for international protection, the competent authorities have the duty to give him information about how to access the procedure. The competent authorities also have the duty to ensure translation support in order to facilitate access to the procedure of asylum. If these duties are not fulfilled both the decree of removal and the decree of detention are void.

An excessive length of the procedure (in this case 2 years and 5 months) for examining the jurisdiction for the application for international protection, which is not caused by the protection seeker himself, leads to an obligation of the Member State to decide the case itself (“duty of self-entry”). Thus this Member State has jurisdiction for the application for international protection to guarantee a fast and efficient procedure within the Dublin III-Regulation.

Detention pending Dublin transfer can only be ordered on the basis of Article 28 Dublin-III-Regulation, which contains autonomous provisions on the detention of foreigner. Additional criteria laid down by national laws are required in order to specify the condition of "risk of absconding". A deportation detention order that does not even refer to Art. 28 Dublin-III-Regulation is unlawful.

The case is a referral back to the CNDA from the Council of State in no. 350661 where the Council had found the CNDA to have erred in law in a previous appeal  (no. 10012810) by finding that Nigerian women, who were victims of human trafficking networks and who had actively sought to escape the network, constituted a social group within the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The CNDA found that victims of trafficking from the Edo State do, indeed, share a common background and distinct identity which falls within the definition of a particular social group. The applicant was given refugee status.

The administrative authorities ensured an adequate standard of proceedings and had correctly established the facts in a case of an applicant who had only brought up the argument that she was a victim of domestic violence at the court stage.

The Court does not accept the allegations that the applicant was deprived of her right to court because she and her children were deported before the deadline for the complaint to the court. The complaint was eventually lodged within the deadline which means she could benefit from the real possibility of applying this measure so her right to court was not infringed. Therefore the Court sees no need to request the Constitutional Tribunal to take a stand on this issue.

The court may reject the request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU when the provision is clear (acte clair), only if it checks that the clarity of the contested provision is equally obvious to the courts of other Member States and the CJEU, taking into account the characteristics of EU law and special problems posed by its interpretation, including a comparison of all language versions, respecting the specific terminology of EU law and the placement of the interpretation in the context of EU law.

The Constitutional Court annulled the contested judgment because of the infringement of the right to equal protection of rights in connection to the right to an effective remedy.

This case examines the refusal to grant international protection status to a physically disabled, single Egyptian woman. The OIN failed to provide clear, detailed reasoning why the Applicant did not meet the legal conditions to acquire subsidiary protection status in Hungary.

The Metropolitan Court of Public Administration and Labour granted subsidiary protection status to the Applicant and concluded that based on cumulative grounds the Applicant would be subject to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if she returned to Egypt.

When assessing an asylum application, a judge shall consider as relevant both the applicant’s homosexuality as well as the fact that homosexuality is considered a crime in the country of origin of the applicant. Moreover, the judge shall base its reasoning not only on the assessment of credibility of the applicant, but also on the actual situation in the country of origin, which has to be verified through its own power of investigation.

The Applicant appealed a decision ordering his transfer to another Member State responsible for examining his application for international protection because the six-month period during which his transfer had to be carried out in accordance with Regulation (EU) no. 604/2013 known as “Dublin III” (the “Dublin III Regulation”) had expired. 

The Council of State denied the appeal holding that the six-month period was interrupted by the legal action against the transfer measure but had not restarted because the appeal was still pending when the Préfet issued the Dublin III summons to the Applicant.