Case summaries
The case concerns the potential removal of a Syrian national of Armenian origin and Christian denomination from Greece to Türkiye under the EU-Türkiye Statement of 18 March 2026, following the rejection of his asylum claim on safe third country grounds. The Court struck out the Article 3 complaint concerning the risk of ill-treatment upon removal due to the cessation of risk. It found no violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3 having regard to the multi-layered examination of the asylum claim and the reliance on the EU–Türkiye framework, assurances and supporting material, and held that the conditions of the applicant’s detention in a Greek police station amounted to a violation of Article 3 ECHR.
The case concerns seven Venezuelan nationals who arrived in Curaçao in April 2019 and were placed in immigration detention following refusal of entry and removal orders. The Court found a violation of Article 3 ECHR in relation to the use of force during their detention, the absence of an effective and independent investigation and the lack of justification for the use of rubber bullets against applicants in custody. It further found a violation of Article 5 § 4 ECHR, due to the lack of access to a speedy judicial review of the lawfulness of their detention, particularly due to the lack of accessible remedies, language barriers, and absence of effective legal assistance.
The safe third country ground under Article 33(2)(c) of Directive 2013/32 is optional; an application may be declared inadmissible on that basis even if the applicant qualifies for international protection, but it cannot be rejected as unfounded on that ground.
Article 38 requires national law to define criteria establishing a sufficient connection between the applicant and the third country to make transfer reasonable.
Article 38(2)(b) and (c) of Directive 2013/32 permits reliance on publicly available sources and executive lists of safe third countries, provided that national law sets out a methodology for an individualised assessment of safety and allows the applicant to challenge the existence of the required connection.
Courts hearing appeals must verify the existence of such a connection, even if national law does not expressly grant that power.
A three-day time limit, including public holidays and non-working days, for lodging an appeal against a decision rejecting an application for international protection as manifestly unfounded under an accelerated procedure is incompatible with Article 46(4) of the Asylum Procedures Directive where it restricts the effective exercise of the rights guaranteed in Article 12(1)(b) and (2), and Articles 22 and 23 of that Directive.
Rejection of the re-application of Lebanese nationals as inadmissible "subsequent applications" under Directive 2013/32/EU.
Account must be taken of the evolution of the circumstances in the country of origin, from the moment of the application for international protection, until the moment when the Court has to take a decision.
In this instance, relying on the change of circumstances that has taken place in Ukraine since the Applicants introduced the demand, the Court grants subsidiary protection status to a Ukrainian family. The current international conflict taking place in Ukraine exposes them to a risk of serious harm.
Article 40(2) of the Asylum Procedures Directive does not distinguish between initial and subsequent applications for international protection. As such, Member States should not treat the assessment of evidence submitted in subsequent applications different from evidence submitted in a first application. Any document submitted by the applicant in support of his application for international protection must be considered, and the inability to authenticate that document cannot justify the exclusion of such a document from the examination.
National legislation that grants the possibility of rejecting an application made by a third-country national or a stateless person for international protection, whose previous application seeking refugee status in another Member State implementing the Dublin III Regulation had been rejected, is precluded under Article 33(2)(d) of Directive 2013/32 read in conjunction with Article 2(q) thereof.
Article 27(1) of Dublin III Regulation read in the light of recital 19 thereof, and Article 47 of the Charter preclude national legislation that bars domestic courts from assessing an application for annulment of a Dublin transfer decision by considering circumstances that emerged after the transfer decision was adopted and which are decisive for the correct application of the regulation. However, such circumstances may not be considered if that legislation foresees a specific remedy with ex nunc review that can be exercised after the emergence of the new circumstances is not conditional on the person’s deprivation of liberty or on the imminent implementation of that decision.
The absence of food provision raised an issue of Article 3 in respect of the first applicant, given his state of total dependency on the Hungarian government during his stay at the Röszke transit zone. The physical conditions of the container in which the family stayed in, the unsuitable facilities for children, irregularities in the provision of medical services, and the prolonged stay in the area amounted to a violation of Article 3 in respect of the applicant mother and the children.
The family’s stay at the Röszke transit zone amounted to deprivation of liberty due to, inter alia, the lack of any domestic legal provisions fixing the maximum duration of the applicants’ stay, the excessive duration of the applicants’ stay and the conditions in the transit zone. Their deprivation of liberty was unlawful under Article 5 (1), as there was no strictly defined statutory basis for the applicants’ detention and no formal decision complete with reasons for detention had been issued by the Hungarian authorities.
Article 5 (4) was also violated because he applicants did not have avenue in which the lawfulness of their detention could have been decided promptly by a court.