Case summaries

The case concerned Somali and Eritrean migrants travelling from Libya who had been intercepted at sea by the Italian authorities and sent back to Libya. Returning them to Libya without examining their case exposed them to a risk of ill-treatment and amounted to a collective expulsion.

When the asylum claim of an applicant has not been individually assessed, the National Court of Asylum has to cancel the asylum refusal decision and the asylum claim has to be reassessed by the OFPRA.

When reaching a decision, the Defendant should have protected the best interest of the child. Taking into account the fact that the Applicant is a minor and providing legal representation for a minor applicant, are necessary elements in the process of demonstrating and establishing the facts. The principle of protecting the best interest of the child has to be enforced when assessing the risk that the absolute rights of the child might be violated if he is returned to his country of origin and needs to be reflected in the Defendant’s burden of proof as well as in the rules and standards of  evidence (in relation to subsidiary protection).

The Defendant should already have started searching for parents during the procedure for international protection and not only once the procedure for removing the child from the state has begun.   

Threats and violence against a person’s family members can be considered as acts of persecution where that person is connected to the facts which previously led to the violence..

The Plaintiff needs to state all circumstances known to him in relation to his persecution; however he does not need to establish a material and legal connection between the persecution and the reasons for persecution.

The fact that somebody is a child in Afghanistan can mean that he belongs to particular social group.

The fears of an Applicant originating from a refugee camp near Tindouf were considered with regard to the Self-Proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), taken as a de facto authority. 

This was an appeal against the decision to transfer the applicant to Hungary on the ground that Hungary would transfer the applicant to Serbia, which would amount to indirect refoulement in violation of Article 3 ECHR. The Asylum Court allowed the appeal and held that, although Hungary can be assumed as a safe country, if an applicant gives individual reasons for why Hungary is not safe these must be examined in detail. 

The final determination by an administrative court which quashed a decision returning an individual and determining the country of return on the grounds that the individual had substantiated the fear of persecution in the country of return, necessitated the admissibility before the asylum courts of an application for the matter to be re-examined. Based on this judgment, the National Asylum Court (CNDA) therefore had to re-examine all the facts submitted to it for determination.

The case concerns the extension of periods of detention while awaiting removal from Belgian territory with respect to an Iraqi citizen having served his sentence and having submitted a number of asylum applications in Belgium.

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in R.C. v. Sweden (Application no. 41827/07) has a definitive impact on how protection needs are assessed and the scope of the duty of Swedish courts and authorities to investigate claims of torture.

The Applicant’s objective fear was not considered well-founded as persecution was not considered reasonably likely. It was held that there was a reasonable likelihood that, should he return, the Applicant would be forced to live as an internally displaced person in degrading conditions because he lacked the family network that would be required in order to reintegrate him into his homeland socially and financially. Exposure to extreme living conditions constitutes degrading treatment and deporting a person to a country where he would be subject to such conditions violates Article 3 of the ECHR. Subsidiary protection status was therefore granted.

The Syrian Kurdish Applicant has been persecuted and tortured for his nationality and imputed political opinion.