Case summaries
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.
Although the asylum seeker has been unable to offer any credible account of the death penalty allegedly imposed on him due to his homosexuality, it must nevertheless be assessed whether, he has grounds to fear persecution or is in real danger of suffering serious harm in his home country due to his sexual orientation, and what weight must be given to the fact that he must hide his homosexuality to avoid this kind of threat. The judgments of the Administrative Court and the Immigration Service were overturned and the case was returned to the Immigration Service for further consideration.
When detained under conditions that constitute the notion of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of article 3 ECHR, a person is not criminally responsible for committing the unlawful act of escaping custody.
The applicant sought to rely on her Islamic proxy marriage to her husband, a recognised refugee in Ireland, to resist removal to the UK under the Dublin Regulations. Her application for judicial review failed as she was held to have forfeited her right under Article 7 of the Dublin II Regulation due to delay on her part in asserting that right.
This case concerned the concept of ‘safe country’ within the Dublin system and respect for fundamental rights of asylum seekers. The Court held that EU law prevents the application of a conclusive presumption that Member States observe all the fundamental rights of the European Union. Art. 4 Charter must be interpreted as meaning that the Member States may not transfer an asylum seeker to the Member State responsible within the meaning of the Regulation where they cannot be unaware that systemic deficiencies in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions of asylum seekers in that Member State amount to substantial grounds for believing that the asylum seeker would face a real risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of the provision. Once it is impossible to transfer the asylum seeker to the responsible Member State then subject to the sovereignty clause the State can check if another Member State is responsible by examining further criteria under the Regulation. This should not take an unreasonable amount of time and if necessary then the Member State concerned must examine the asylum application.
Contrary to the wording of the corresponding Austrian legislation, an entry ban of at least 18 months which must be issued in every case together with a ban on readmission is not compatible with the Returns Directive without a prior examination on a case-by-case basis.
After six and a half years of single asylum proceedings, the Applicants, a family with three children who were well-integrated in Austria, , were expelled by the Asylum Court to Armenia. The Constitutional Court revoked this decision on the grounds of a violation of Art 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The reasons for this were primarily that the integration of the children was given insufficient weight.
According to the residence permit application, the Applicant, born in 1935, has various ailments and he is fully dependent on his daughter who lives in Finland and is a Finnish citizen. In an interim order, the Administrative Court turned down the Applicant’s non-refoulement argument and held that judgment would be made on the substantive issue at a later date. While the substantive issue was still pending at the Administrative Court seeking a stay on the execution of the interim order so that he would not to be deported while the Administrative Court decided on the substantive issue (a ‘repeal’ application). As according to national legal provisions, a repeal application can only be made on a judgment which has entered into force, the repeal application was inadmissible. Administrative Court, the Applicant applied to the Supreme
Because the failure to accept the non-refoulement argument might render the appeal on the substantive issue de facto ineffective, in order to guarantee the Applicant’s legal protection, in exceptional circumstances there was reason to carry out a review to determine whether his appeal should be handled by the Supreme Administrative Court without it being detrimental to the final decision under Section 58 of the Administrative Procedure Act and Section 199 Article 2 of the Aliens Act.
Because the Asylum Court refused the appeal only one day after service of the ruling on the appointment of a legal advisor, the Applicant was not granted an appropriate period of time to use the legal advice and any representation in the proceedings and it was therefore made impossible for him to exercise his rights effectively in the proceedings.
In this case the Tribunal considered the general country situation in Somalia as at the date of decision for five applicants, both men and women from Mogadishu, south or central Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland. The risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) was also considered.