Case summaries
A subsequent application is not admissible unless the interested party presents new facts or elements relating to his personnel situation or to the situation in his country of origin, out of which he could not have had knowledge of previously, and likely, if they have probative value, to modify the appreciation of the legitimacy or the credibility of the application of the interested party.
The director general of OFPRA was right to find that the elements that the applicants presented before him did not significantly increase the probability that they would meet the qualifying conditions to claim protection and that their subsequent applications were inadmissible, without having undertaken a hearing before making the decision on inadmissibility.
The presence of laws criminalising homosexuality does not amount to persecution within the meaning of article 9, Directive 2011/95/EU when there is no real risk for gay men to be prosecuted on the basis of these laws. A gay man in Algeria may reasonably be expected to relocate within the country in order to avoid persecution from his family members, and to conceal his sexual identity so as to conform to societal pressures falling short of acts of persecution.
When addressing asylum claims, refugee status must be recognised when there is a well-founded fear of persecution for any of the reasons foreseen in the 1951 Refugee Convention. Assessment of an asylum request fundamentally needs careful consideration of the facts and personal circumstances of the asylum seeker, as well as an analysis of the nature of the risk. The criteria of this test does not have to be restrictive, it is sufficient that the competent authority has a rational belief that the requirements are met for the purpose of receiving refugee status.
This case is concerned with whether the decision to deny the asylum application and the subsequently imposed entry ban were justified based on articles 1F(a)-(c). Under these provisions the Secretary of State can raise national security as a ‘serious ground’ for his decision if an element of ‘personal participation’ can be proven.
The Supreme Court quashed the detention and deportation warrants issued against a citizen from the Congo, following a number of prosedural failures by the Cypriot Government to comply with the Cap. 105 of the Alien and Migration Law and Directive 2008/115/EC, denying him the opportunity for voluntary departure.
A person, with a well-founded fear, within the meaning of the Geneva Convention, of being harmed by their family if they return to their country of origin because they are a member of a particular social group and are unable to rely on effective protection from the state, may be entitled to claim refugee status.
Termination of an applicant’s international protection status (ie where there is a change or termination of protection grounds) must be examined against the principle of non-refoulement, which ensures the right to a fair and efficient procedure in which the Asylum authority assesses if non-refoulement would be violated where protection ceases.
It results from the principle of non-refoulement that the applicant in proceedings on termination of subsidiary protection must have the possibility to state all the reasons for which subsidiary protection should not cease.
In the process of renewal of subsidiary protection all the guarantees provided by Article 18 of the Constitution (Prohibition of Torture) should be respected.
Legislation which limited the assessment of the competent authority in the subsidiary protection renewal procedure only to the grounds based on which an individual has been granted subsidiary protection, is inconsistent with the right set out in Article 18 of the Constitution.
Article 1F of the Refugee Convention relates to the application of a definition and not whether an individual seeking asylum should obtain protection or not. Therefore, and with regards to Article 1F(b), any post-offence conduct does not serve to mitigate the seriousness of an alleged non-political offence. No doctrine of expiation is to, thus, be applied to Article 1F(b).
The term serious used in Article 1F(b) denotes especially grave offending and requires no further qualification by the term “particularly."
An Applicant’s interest in remaining in a Member State pending a final decision on his asylum status prevails over the public’s interest in immediate enforcement of an ordered transfer if the appropriate asylum procedure of an Applicant in the country to which the Applicant would be deported cannot be ensured (Hungary).
The Returns Directive does not preclude domestic legislation which provides for a prison sentence as a criminal law penalty for non-EU citizens who unlawfully re-enter the country in breach of an entry ban.