Case summaries
The case concerned complaints under Article 5 § 1 by asylum
seekers staying at the Debrecen Reception Centre for Refugees (Hungary) about the unlawfulness of their detention – without effective judicial review – pending the outcome of their asylum claims.
The case concerns an asylum seeker’s complaint under Article 5(1) about the unlawfulness of his detention without effective judicial review, pending the outcome of his asylum claim.
Where information used by the National Asylum Court (CNDA) to reach its decision is information concerning the asylum seeker’s specific situation, it must be kept on file so that the parties can take note of it and discuss it.
Persecution at the hands of political authorities acting for political reasons and with a political objective although not arising from the actual or imputed opinions of the individual concerned.
The appeal authority is obliged to assess the case on the basis of all the evidence and to provide proper grounds for its decision. It is not sufficient, therefore, to state in general terms that the second-instance authority shares the position of the head of the Polish Office for Foreigners and the arguments put forward by him. If the principle of two-instance administrative proceedings is to be observed, it is not enough to assert that two decisions by two authorities of different rank were issued in the given case.
The CALL held that the fact the Applicant had already suffered very severe genital mutilation (type III – infibulation) was a serious indicator of a well-founded fear of persecution due to her membership of a particular social group.
The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees contains a finite list of grounds on which refugee status may be recognised and does not include victims of war, natural disasters, or famine, family situation, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, or poverty.
The assessment of whether the foreignor's fear of persecution is justified must therefore be performed with reference to the individual case in question and in the light of the general social, legal, political, and economic situation of the country of origin of the foreignor applying for refugee status.
The Applicant left his country of origin (Iran) in 2003 having been arrested, illegally detained and tortured because of his participation in demonstrations against the regime in 1999. He told the Committee that he had occasionally participated in the anti-regime activities of Iranians in Greece, and that he did not wish to return to Iran because he feared that he would be imprisoned again and would be subjected to torture. Concerning his religious beliefs, he stated that he was an atheist. The Committee accepted that the torture suffered by the Applicant in his country of origin constituted previous persecution. However, the Committee believed that there was no a well-founded fear of persecution now or in the future because of his prior actions, nor because of his prior actions in conjunction with circumstances which occurred in Greece (participation in Iranian movements), nor even because of the Applicant's atheism and, therefore, that the fear of persecution was not well-founded. Nevertheless, the Committee acknowledged that “there may have been situations in which the Applicant was persecuted in the country of origin, but he has no present or future fear of persecution there. However, it is appropriate to recognise him as a refugee because of the compelling reasons arising from previous persecution, especially when the persecution he suffered was particularly atrocious”; and it unanimously recognised the Applicant's refugee status because it held that the Applicant had suffered terrible persecution in the past because of his anti-regime activities (political opinion) without the situation in his country of origin having since improved, and because the Applicant continued to suffer the consequences of his psychological harm, meaning that his return to Iran and his life there would be intolerable.
The court ordered the Office of Immigration and Nationality to conduct new proceedings. The mere fact that national security risk factors arise vis-à-vis a person is not sufficient reason to exclude them from refugee or subsidiary protection status.
This cases concerns the interpretation of Article 2(c) and Article 9(1)(a) of the Qualification Directive in a case where the two Applicants are Pakistani nationals who are members of the Ahmadi religious community and fear persecution there on the basis of religion.