Case summaries

The decision of denying asylum is disproportionate, as the fact that the acts of persecution are indiscriminate and affect a large majority of the population do not exclude the application of the 1951 Convention when the necessary elements of the provision are present. The reports of UNHCR were also noted in the Court’s assessment, particularly regarding the risk groups that the organisation has characterised.

A subsequent application is not admissible unless the interested party presents new facts or elements relating to his personnel situation or to the situation in his country of origin, out of which he could not have had knowledge of previously, and likely, if they have probative value, to modify the appreciation of the legitimacy or the credibility of the application of the interested party.

The director general of OFPRA was right to find that the elements that the applicants presented before him did not significantly increase the probability that they would meet the qualifying conditions to claim protection and that their subsequent applications were inadmissible, without having undertaken a hearing before making the decision on inadmissibility.

An Applicant’s interest in remaining in a Member State pending a final decision on his asylum status prevails over the public’s interest in immediate enforcement of an ordered transfer if the appropriate asylum procedure of an Applicant in the country to which the Applicant would be deported cannot be ensured (Hungary). 

An application to establish the suspensive effect of a pending appeal pursuant to Section 80, Paragraph 5 of the German Code of Administrative Court Procedure (Verwaltungsgerichtsordnung – VwGO) is not a legal remedy under Article 20, Paragraph 1 (d) of Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 (“Dublin II Regulation”). A German court’s dismissal of a Section 80, Paragraph 5 application does therefore not suspend the 6-month deadline under Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Dublin II Regulation for a member state of the European Union (“Member State”) to transfer an applicant to a Member State that has accepted (actually or  implicitly) a request to take charge. 

The judgment concerns the scope of Article 21 of Council Directive 2004/83/EC of 29 April 2004 with regards to derogation from protection from refoulement and the possibility to revoke a residence permit issued to a refugee pursuant to Article 24 of said Directive. 

This judicial review case quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision on the basis that the Tribunal member incorrectly made credibility findings regarding the applicant’s claim without a fully reasoned consideration of the country of origin information and a flawed reliance on inconsistencies in an Iranian Court document. 

The Appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal on the ground that he qualified for subsidiary protection under Article 2(e) and (f) of the Qualification Directive and was therefore entitled to a residence permit under Article 24(2) of the Qualification Directive.

In dismissing the appeal, the Tribunal found that: (a) Article 24 of the Qualification Directive does not confer a substantive right of residence in the member state concerned but rather its function is to determine the modalities whereby a right of residence otherwise existing is to be documented, and (b) the Procedures Directive is a truly adjectival instrument of EU legislation which does not create any substantive rights in the realm of asylum or subsidiary protection.

This case examined the compatibility of the Dublin II Regulation with the European Convention on Human Rights regarding transfers to Italy under the Dublin II Regulation.

The Court found a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights if the Swiss authorities were to send an Afghan couple and their six children back to Italy under the Dublin Regulation without having first obtained individual guarantees from the Italian authorities that the applicants would be taken charge of in a manner adapted to the age of the children and that the family would be kept together.

The Council of State denied the Applicants’ appeal against the decision made by the Board of the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) to include Georgia and the Republic of Albania in the list of safe countries of origin because, amongst other things, these countries are democratic institutions and are parties to the ECHR.

The Council of State granted the Applicants’ appeal against the decision made by the Board of OFPRA to include the Republic of Kosovo in the list of safe countries of origin because, amongst other things, the country’s political and social contexts were unstable and some segments of the population were subject to violence without sufficient police protection.

The CJEU ruled that it had no jurisdiction to answer the questions referred as they concerned the direct interpretation of the provisions of the 1951 Geneva Convention.