Case summaries

This was a decision on appeal against detention under Articles 76(3) et seq of Law 3386/2005 and 30(2) of Law 3907/2011. It concerned an act to halt an asylum application, Non-attendance at the personal interview at the primary examination of the application was deemed to be tacit withdrawal of the application to be granted asylum. The Applicant was arrested due to the absence of legal documentation and decisions to detain and return were issued.  Mental illness associated with the return process was considered.

A judicial decision lifted the detention order so as to not worsen the health condition of the Applicant. Imposition of restrictions and a deadline for leaving Greece were discussed.

Dismissal of the Appellant’s claim that the findings of fact were incorrect beause the Respondent had failed to examine relevant grounds for assessing the  existence of serious harm from the perspectives listed under Section 2(f)(1) and (2) of the Asylum Act, and specifically the risk of execution.

As the Appellant did not claim, either during the administrative or the judicial proceedings (before the Regional Court), that criminal proeedings were under way against him in his country of origin, or that he faced the threat of execution, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, the Respondent could not be criticised for approaching the hearing of evidence in relation to his claims concerning the bad security situation in his country of origin, and to that end had focused on assessing the security situation in the country of origin and had not dealt with the risk of execution in the country of origin.

This case concerns a child asylum applicant who had his appeal against refusal of asylum considered after he had turned 18, and thus had become an adult. He complained that this breached Article 39 of the Procedures Directive (effective remedy).

The Court found that the decision refusing protection and containing a return order issued to an asylum seeker, whose spouse obtained a temporary residence permit within a regularisation action, would infringe his right to respect for family life, as defined in the ECHR. 

The Council of State ruled that non-governmental organisations who, by way of their statutory objects and their actions, can prove a sufficient interest in relation to the subject-matter of the proceedings, can make an application before the CNDA on the terms set out by the Council of State.

In this case, the Council of State held that the CNDA had made an error of law in ruling 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.

In the case of the first Applicant, the exceptional personal circumstances dictate round the clock highly qualified medical care, which is provided by health care institutions in Slovenia, while home care is provided by the second Applicant. If such a sick person were forced to leave the stable conditions in Slovenia and start living in a collective centre in BiH, the first Applicant could suffer inhuman or degrading treatment due to inappropriate health care, which would represent serious harm, which in turn justifies subsidiary protection in Slovenia.

In the event that the second Applicant was returned to the country of origin, she would be separated from the first Applicant (i.e. her family) contrary to the fundamental principle of family unity. Apart from this, in the event of returning to BiH or to a collective centre in BiH, it would be reasonable to believe that, as a young Roma female without a family and means for survival, she would also be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment due to the discrimination against the Roma population.

The application cannot be rejected as manifestly unfounded on the grounds that the Applicant comes from a safe country of origin, if she demonstrably claims and proves, with documented evidence, facts that are relevant to international protection. Domestic violence is such a relevant fact if the Applicant is not provided with efficient protection against such actions.

The case concerns a Syrian Kurd’s detention by Cypriot authorities and his intended deportation to Syria after an early morning police operation on 11 June 2010 removing him and other Kurds from Syria from an encampment outside government buildings in Nicosia in protest against the Cypriot Government’s asylum policy.

The Court found a violation of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights taken together with Articles 2 (right to life) and 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) due to the lack of an effective remedy with automatic suspensive effect to challenge the applicant’s deportation; a violation of Article 5 §§ 1 and 4 (right to liberty and security) of the Convention due to the unlawfulness of the applicant’s entire period of detention with a view to his deportation without an effective remedy at his disposal to challenge the lawfulness of his detention. 

The Minister based a subsidiary protection decision and deportation order examination on the premise that the Applicant was a Tanzanian national based on records that were provided by the UK Border Agency to that effect, in circumstances where the Applicant claimed that he was Somali; that the Tanzanian identity was false; and he claimed that two language reports which were supportive of his claim of Somali nationality and submitted in a separate application for a subsequent asylum claim should have been considered by the Minister in the making of his subsidiary protection and deportation decisions.

The High Court held that the language reports were added to the decision making process by virtue of being referenced in (but not attached to) correspondence concerning the subsidiary protection application and representations against deportation; that they were not considered by the Minister; and that the failure to do so breached the Applicant’s right to a fresh consideration of his credibility, and the Minister’s obligation to consider relevant facts.

Consequently the subsidiary protection decision and the deportation were quashed and remitted.

The risk of arranged marriage is widespread in Afghanistan, particularly for underage girls, which means that it may constitute grounds for refugee status for women.  
In the examination of Article 8 of Directive 2004/83/EC, it is important to take into account the fact that family members may only return together with their children and spouses on the grounds of the protection of marriage and family.