Case summaries
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that Spain violated the right to an effective remedy of 30 asylum seekers of Sahrawi origin who faced removal to Morocco before a thorough examination of their asylum application. It was only the ECtHR’s intervention that halted their deportation.
Although the decision and length of Greek detention of asylum seekers was justified and proportionate, the conditions of the Venna detention centre did not comply with Article 3 and there was no effective review of the lawfulness of their detention.
The Supreme Court held that a person who is resisting a Dublin transfer to the Member State responsible for processing the applicant's asylum claim need not show that there is a “systemic deficiency” in that Member State’s asylum system, rather that the conditions in that Member State would expose the person to inhumane and degrading treatment as prohibited by Article 3 ECHR.
The case examines the allegations of a Guinea-Bissau national who sought asylum in Belgium, that the remedies he tried in order to challenge the lawfulness of his detention in Belgium were neither speedy nor effective, in violation of Article 5 para 4. He further complained under Article 3 that his deportation to Greece would place him at risk of ill-treatment and under Article 13 that he did not have an effective remedy.
A national decision maker must pay close attention to a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) decision when determining an application for asylum. Such a decision does not create a presumption, however, substantive countervailing reasons are required to justify the decision maker coming to a different decision to the UNHCR.
The case examined the allegations of three applicants of Chechen origin that their deportation to Russia would place them in conditions amounting to inhumane and degrading treatment. Their allegations were based on the general situation of Chechens in Russia as well as on an individual risk of the first applicant because of his documentary work, recording the execution of villagers by the Russian federal troops.
The Court found that the deportation of the applicants to Russia would give rise to a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
An action for annulment before the Council for Alien Law Litigation was not an effective remedy. The Law of 15 March 2012 limiting the remedy against a decision rejecting an asylum application to an action for annulment when the Applicant came from a safe country of origin, whereas other applicants were able to seek a ‘full-remedy action’, breached the principle of equality and non-discrimination enshrined in Articles 10 and 11 of the Belgian Constitution. The said Law was therefore repealed by the Constitutional Court.
Asylum seeker’s return to Iran would not violate Article 2 or 3 because the risk of political persecution was unsubstantiated and peripheral and his conversion to Christianity was likely unknown to the authorities.
The case appeals a decision of the Ministry of Interior to deny asylum and subsidiary protection considering the alleged crimes against humanity committed by the appellant, national of Iran. He was a member of a declared criminal organization. The Court analyses his adherence to the organisation following a proportionality approach. It addresses the need to examine the existence of substantial proof of the commission of crimes against humanity when applying the exclusion clauses to deny international protection.
The seven year time lapse since the Sunni Muslim Applicant’s former service in the Iraqi army, no evidence of future risk arising from previous injuries, and no medical reasons preventing return, led the majority to find that return to Iraq would not violate the applicants rights under Articles 2 or 3.