Case summaries
The Council for Alien Law Litigation confirmed that those who enjoy subsidiary protection are equivalent to recognised refugees, for the purposes of family reunification. This means that they are exempted from additional conditions in relation to housing, health insurance, and means of subsistence provided that the application for family reunification is submitted within one year and the family ties existed before the arrival in Belgium of the reuniting person (who enjoys subsidiary protection). This is despite the fact that those who enjoy subsidiary protection do not fall within the scope of application of the Family Reunification Directive.
Whether the detention of an individual under the Returns Directive for the purposes of removal is still lawful if the Applicant subsequently applies for asylum.
The Court recognised the Applicant as a refugee because he would be at risk of persecution due to his political opinions upon returning to his home country.
The Applicant had been forced to leave the UNRWA’s area of operations. The facts that had led to his departure from Lebanon justified ending his exclusion from the application of Article 1D of the Geneva Convention.
Rather than dismissing the application, the Court recognised the subsidiary protection status of the Applicant, as his/her return to the country of origin would lead to the risk of serious harm (inhuman, degrading treatment or indiscriminate violence).
Applicant M was a citizen of Algeria who applied for a residence document in Finland on grounds of family relations. He/she was married to a sponsor called L and they had a joint minor child. L had another child from a previous marriage. A prerequisite for M to be granted a residence document was for him/her to have sufficient income, which he/she did not have. There was also the question of whether denying a residence document breached the Union citizen’s rights under Article 20 of the TFEU. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that denying a residence document did not breach the Unio citizen’s rights. In addition, there were no factors which would support deviating from the means of support prerequisite as stated in the law.
A foreigner shall cease to be eligible for subsidiary protection when the circumstances which led to the granting of subsidiary protection status have ceased to exist or have changed to such a degree that protection is no longer required. The relevant provision refers to two separate reasons that justify revoking subsidiary protection. The first is that the circumstances which led to the granting of such protection have ceased to exist. The second is that those circumstances have changed, although the change of circumstances must be of such a significant and non-temporary nature that the foreigner no longer faces a real risk of serious harm.
Subsidiary protection cannot establish a right that is comparable to, for instance, the right to obtain permission for temporary stay or indefinite leave to remain.
The grounds for extending a deadline for departure can exist either within the country or abroad or grounds which otherwise hinder a departure within the deadline. In addition, problems which typically affect former asylum seekers, namely long absence from the country of origin and circumstances such as disappearance of their social network following an absence of many years, are to be considered as special circumstances which make it necessary to extend the deadline for departure.
Although voluntary departure is an absolute requirement for the extension of the deadline for departure, the intention to submit an application for leave to remain does not in itself represent an obstacle. Rather, a judgment is required in each individual case.
A person in detention pending deportation has a fundamental right to receive visitors -including visits from journalists -and inhibiting this visiting right for the person in detention can be challenged by way of appeal to the Independent Administrative Senate. A journalist, on the other hand, who has been refused a visit to someone in deportation detention, does not have a right of appeal, amongst other things, because the information which could be provided by the person in deportation detentionis not publicly accessible and there is thus no state obligation under Art 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to facilitate access to this information by granting a visit to the person in deportation detention.
This case concerned an application for a licence for a civil marriage with a Greek citizen where there was an inability to provide a certificate of being unmarried or a birth certificate because of disrupted relationship with homeland and in the context of the submission of a sworn statement regarding the absence of any impediment to marriage. The case considered the balance between the safeguards of family law and a State's obligation to protect the fundamental rights of refugees. Under the principle of proportionality, the private and family life of the individual is inviolable, bearing in mind that the lack of evidence of being unmarried should not prevent the him from being granted a licence to enter into a civil marriage with his partner, the mother of their two minor children which he has already voluntarily recognised. It is possible to substitute in concreto the said evidence with a simple sworn statement and, therefore, the Applicant does satisfy the legal requirements for the granting of a marriage licence.