Case summaries
The case concerns the potential removal of a Syrian national of Armenian origin and Christian denomination from Greece to Türkiye under the EU-Türkiye Statement of 18 March 2026, following the rejection of his asylum claim on safe third country grounds. The Court struck out the Article 3 complaint concerning the risk of ill-treatment upon removal due to the cessation of risk. It found no violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3 having regard to the multi-layered examination of the asylum claim and the reliance on the EU–Türkiye framework, assurances and supporting material, and held that the conditions of the applicant’s detention in a Greek police station amounted to a violation of Article 3 ECHR.
The case concerns seven Venezuelan nationals who arrived in Curaçao in April 2019 and were placed in immigration detention following refusal of entry and removal orders. The Court found a violation of Article 3 ECHR in relation to the use of force during their detention, the absence of an effective and independent investigation and the lack of justification for the use of rubber bullets against applicants in custody. It further found a violation of Article 5 § 4 ECHR, due to the lack of access to a speedy judicial review of the lawfulness of their detention, particularly due to the lack of accessible remedies, language barriers, and absence of effective legal assistance.
The Committee found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention against Torture (non-refoulement), considering that the State party failed to address the individual circumstances and risk profile of the complainant, namely the fact that she was a woman of conscription age and a “failed asylum seeker”, when ascertaining whether her return to Eritrea would pose a risk of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. Also, it observed that the State disregarded her asylum claim relying on the report’s findings, which did not meet the impartiality required as evidentiary proof.
Detention beyond the period for which an individual would otherwise need to be detained pursuant to Schedule 2 § 16(1) for the purpose of an age assessment that will or doesn’t comply with applicable legal standards would be unlawful. Also, both common law and section 55 of the BCIA 2009 require a fair and careful process involving appropriate safeguards, which the Guidance doesn’t provide and is also inconsistent with the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) pre-existing polices.
The assessment for a well-founded fear of persecution under the Refugee Convention must have regard to Country-of-Origin information and reports. Moreover, if the publication of the applicant’s name will have no adverse effect on either him or his family, the appellant’s private life rights, protected by article 8 ECHR, will not outweigh the public interest in open justice, as protected by article 10 ECHR.
In this case the Upper Tribunal provided that the Refugee Convention doesn’t offer protection from social conservatism and that there is no protected right to enjoy a socially liberal lifestyle. However, the Convention may be considered to apply where ‘westernisation’ reflects a protected characteristic such as political opinion or religious belief, or if there is a real risk that the individual in question would be unable to mask his westernisation and persecutors would impute such protected characteristics to him.
To determine whether there is a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ECHR in the context of expulsion, the Court analyses if the Applicant has presented substantial grounds on (i) whether he faces a real risk of ill-treatment or death in the country of destination, and (ii)whether the national authorities carried out an adequate assessment of the evidence. States have an obligation to analyse the risk ex propio motu when they are aware of facts that could expose an individual to the risk of treatment prohibited by Articles 2 and 3 ECHR. If the domestic jurisdictions didn’t carry out a proper assessment, the Court analyses the risk on its own on the basis of the parties submissions, international reports and its own findings.
States have an obligation, under Article 5 § 1 ECHR, to act with due diligence and impose a reasonable period of detention pending expulsion. Article 5 § 4 ECHR is breached if detained individuals can’t obtain a revision of their detention before a domestic court.
Except for very limited exceptions, the statutory three-year waiting period for family reunification of persons granted ‘temporary protection’ does not allow for an individualised assessment of the interest of family unity in light of the concrete situation of the persons concerned. Eventually the Court finds a violation of Article 8 of the Convention since the measure (whose goal is not otherwise challenged) had a disproportionate impact in the case at hand.
Member States are required to take due account of the best interests of the child before adopting a return decision accompanied by an entry ban, even where the person to whom that decision is addressed is not a minor but his or her father.
The absence of food provision raised an issue of Article 3 in respect of the first applicant, given his state of total dependency on the Hungarian government during his stay at the Röszke transit zone. The physical conditions of the container in which the family stayed in, the unsuitable facilities for children, irregularities in the provision of medical services, and the prolonged stay in the area amounted to a violation of Article 3 in respect of the applicant mother and the children.
The family’s stay at the Röszke transit zone amounted to deprivation of liberty due to, inter alia, the lack of any domestic legal provisions fixing the maximum duration of the applicants’ stay, the excessive duration of the applicants’ stay and the conditions in the transit zone. Their deprivation of liberty was unlawful under Article 5 (1), as there was no strictly defined statutory basis for the applicants’ detention and no formal decision complete with reasons for detention had been issued by the Hungarian authorities.
Article 5 (4) was also violated because he applicants did not have avenue in which the lawfulness of their detention could have been decided promptly by a court.