Case summaries

In assessing asylum applications, national authorities are entitled to consider material contained in the files of third parties. In reviewing such cases, national courts will be under a duty to consider the same material. This does not conflict with the applicant’s right to confidentiality. 

An asylum seeker who was interviewed by telephone during his detention in the waiting zone by an officer of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) in premises which were not subject to OFPRA’s director general’s prior approval has not benefited from the appropriate procedural guarantees attached to the examination of his application.

Consequently, the Ministry of Interior’s order rejecting Mr D’s request to enter the French territory, which was taken in light of an OFPRA opinion given in such circumstances, must be annulled.

This case dealt with the issue of whether the Secretary of State’s certification of the asylum claims of the two independent applicants as “clearly unfounded” was flawed on public law grounds, and the important difference between a decision on refugee status itself and a decision on a claim being “clearly unfounded”.
 

The Royal Decree of 11th May 2015 was quashed to the extent that it included Albania in the list of "safe" countries for the purposes of article 57/6/1, paragraph 4, of the law of 15th December 1980.

Regarding the protection of the right to family life in asylum procedures, same-sex partnerships are in a comparable situation with heterosexual relationships. A distinction between the applicants for international protection based on sexual orientation is not in compliance with the Constitution. Article 16b(1) of IPA, which does not consider persons of a same-sex living in established partnership as family members, is inconsistent with the right to non-discriminatory treatment in the exercise of the right to family life.

The application for international protection by a Syrian national was declared inadmissible based on the finding that Egypt was a Safe Third Country for the applicant. The Court of the Hague concludes that the State Secretary has failed to substantiate his claim that Egypt could be considered a Safe Third Country. 

The lower court had erred in law by judging that the administration need not justify having informed the applicant about the possibility to communicate with a  representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Supreme Administrative Count in the case concerning housing for a refugee ruled that the applicant, as a refugee, has found herself in a very specific situation, which was not taken into account by the authority. The applicant was not able to submit all the documents and information about the members of the family who stayed in Chechnya in order to obtain housing. It is beyond any doubt that the applicant and her children cannot live with their relatives, because other members of their family are in Chechnya, so the missing information could not have had any influence on the case whatsoever.

The Supreme Administrative Court found that it is the authority which is obliged to establish all the facts and find the objective truth. Although the local act imposes an obligation on the applicant to present concrete evidence, it cannot be stated, that justifiable problems with completing the evidence by the applicant exempted the authority from its own obligation to examine the case and enabled to automatically dismiss the application. Such an understanding would be inconsistent with article 6 of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees.

The decision of denying asylum is disproportionate, as the fact that the acts of persecution are indiscriminate and affect a large majority of the population do not exclude the application of the 1951 Convention when the necessary elements of the provision are present. The reports of UNHCR were also noted in the Court’s assessment, particularly regarding the risk groups that the organisation has characterised.

Article 33 of the Qualification Directive, read in conjunction with the Geneva Convention, requires Member States to allow persons to whom they have granted subsidiary protection status not only to move freely within their territory but also to choose their place of residence within that territory.  However, the Directive does not prevent beneficiaries of subsidiary protection status from being subject to a residence condition for the purpose of promoting their integration where said group of persons are not in a comparable situation as non-EU citizens.