Case summaries
Neither the omission nor the delay of the Immigration Office can deprive an asylum applicant of the right to obtain the rehearing of their legal status in case of a change in the circumstances in their country of origin.
Where a person is registered with UNRWA and then later applies for international protection in a European Union Member State such persons are in principle excluded from refugee status in the European Union unless it becomes evident, on the basis of an individualised assessment of all relevant evidence, that their personal safety is at serious risk and it is impossible for UNRWA to guarantee that the living conditions are compatible with its mission and that due to these circumstances the individual has been forced to leave the UNRWA area of operations.
A Member State cannot rely on the rebuttable presumption under Articles 36 and 37 of the 2013 Asylum Procedures Directive (APD) in respect of the safe country of origin concept and subsequently find the application to be manifestly unfounded in accordance with Article 31(8)(b) without having fully implemented and complied with the procedures under the APD relating to the designation of countries as safe countries of origin.
Moreover, a Member State may not consider an application for asylum as manifestly unfounded under the APD due to the insufficiency of the applicant’s representations.
The Federal Administrative Court has to clarify whether the petition for action directed solely at the obligation to decide on the asylum application is admissible. The question if it is also possible to directly oblige the defendant to grant international protection or to establish prohibitions on deportation by means of an action is not the subject of the decision. As a result, the court comes to the conclusion that there was a delay by the respondent of providing the decision on the asylum application without sufficient reason and that the plaintiff has a need for legal protection for its action for failure to act.
The case concerned the application of a take back request under the the Dublin III Regulation where an asylum applicant has lodged multiple asylum applications in two different Member States and is the subject of a European Arrest Warrant.
In the lack of audiovisual recording of the interview, the Judge must set the appearance hearing, otherwise being the decree issued null and void for the breach of the adversarial principle.
The case deals with the illegitimacy of denying the registration of an international protection request on the basis of the request being issued before a non-competent authority and lacking the criterion of “autonomous accommodation”.
Member States can issue a return decision together with, or right after, a negative decision on an asylum application at first instance, as long as they ensure that all judicial effects of the return decision are suspended during the time allowed to appeal and pending that appeal.
During that period, and despite being subjected to a return decision, an asylum applicant must enjoy all the rights under the Reception Conditions Directive. The applicant can rely upon any changes in circumstances affecting his claim that came up after the return decision, before the appeals authority.
The Court submitted a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the requirement of an automatic suspension of the execution of a negative decision on applications for international protection under EU law.
The State Secretary has to carefully weigh interests when deciding about the application of Article 17 (discretionary clauses) of the Dublin Regulation where it concerns an adult applicant whose family members are beneficiaries of international protection in this Member State. The fact that an earlier request for family reunification has been refused, does not imply that the potentially destabilizing effect of a Dublin transfer no longer has to be taken into consideration.