Case summaries

The Constitutional Court ruled that Member States are obliged to examine all circumstances which are important from the perspective of the principle of non-refoulement, when deciding on a Dublin transfer to a responsible Member State. Due to the absolute nature of the protection afforded by the principle of non-refoulement, the assessment must take into account all the circumstances of the particular case, including the applicant's personal situation in the transferring country. In this context, it should also be assessed whether the mere removal of an individual to another country due to their health status is contrary to the requirements arising from the principle of non-refoulement. Thus, when the Supreme Court did not consider the circumstances that are important in terms of respect of the principle of non-refoulement, it infringed the applicants' right to equal protection under article 22 of the Constitution.

The asylum applicant cannot be transferred to Bulgaria because he would face a real risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment pursuant to Article 4 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Hungary does not guarantee the respect of asylum procedures. The transfer must be halted in accordance with article 3 of the Dublin Regulation (EU) No 604/2013.

The judgment’s motivation must be based on more than one source if others are available.

The applicant had sufficiently established that if returned to Hungary under the Dublin Regulation he would not benefit from an examination of his asylum application in line with procedural guarantees as required by the right to asylum. Such a transfer decision thus violated Article 4 of the Charter.

A renewed application for asylum in a second country is admissible if the nature of international protection applied for differs from the protection already granted. Deportation to the country of the first application or the country of origin is not to be taken into account in this situation.

In order to protect the security of state and public order, it is justifiable to limit freedoms and rights, including the right to court. The right to court covers the possibility to access case files by the party of the proceedings as well as the possibility to get to know the motives of the decision and formulate allegations against them. When there is a need to protect the security of state and public order, the rights of the party of the proceedings are limited. The party cannot get to know the motives of the decisions and has to rely on the fair judgement of the authority.

The courts as well as the administrative authorities got to know the motives of the decision and had a possibility to verify them in the context of the legal conditions in return proceedings. Their assessment is binding and sufficient. Assessment of the authorities is subject to control of legality in administrative court proceedings, so it cannot be stated that the actions of the authority are out of control.

The Supreme Administrative Court rules that Article 12(1)2 of the Return Directive which allows for non-disclosure of certain facts of the return decision for the reasons of national security is a specific law applicable in return cases and to that extent it excludes the general safeguards envisaged in Article 47 of the Charter.

The issue to be decided in this case was whether the applicant was entitled to judicial review of the decision of the Refugee Applications Commissioners, or whether her complaints could be adequately addressed on appeal to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal. 

The Court quashed the decision of the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) because it did not assess the Applicant’s fear of persecution in a due manner and held that there is a real internal flight alternative in an erroneous way, without due regard to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU)

The transfer of asylum seekers from Belgium to Austria, under the Dublin Regulation, is contrary to the principle of due diligence, because the government has failed to obtain information on the effects of the moratorium of the processing of asylum applications in Austria.

The Court suspended domestic proceedings and referred the case for preliminary ruling procedure to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The Court asked the CJEU to clarify the substance of its ban on exposing applicants for international protection to ‘tests’ to substantiate their sexual orientation.