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 assessment for a well-founded fear of persecution under the Refugee Convention must have regard to Country-of-Origin information and reports. Moreover, if the publication of the applicant’s name will have no adverse effect on either him or his family, the appellant’s private life rights, protected by article 8 ECHR, will not outweigh the public interest in open justice, as protected by article 10 ECHR.
In this case the Upper Tribunal provided that the Refugee Convention doesn’t offer protection from social conservatism and that there is no protected right to enjoy a socially liberal lifestyle. However, the Convention may be considered to apply where ‘westernisation’ reflects a protected characteristic such as political opinion or religious belief, or if there is a real risk that the individual in question would be unable to mask his westernisation and persecutors would impute such protected characteristics to him.
To determine whether there is a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ECHR in the context of expulsion, the Court analyses if the Applicant has presented substantial grounds on (i) whether he faces a real risk of ill-treatment or death in the country of destination, and (ii)whether the national authorities carried out an adequate assessment of the evidence. States have an obligation to analyse the risk ex propio motu when they are aware of facts that could expose an individual to the risk of treatment prohibited by Articles 2 and 3 ECHR. If the domestic jurisdictions didn’t carry out a proper assessment, the Court analyses the risk on its own on the basis of the parties submissions, international reports and its own findings.
States have an obligation, under Article 5 § 1 ECHR, to act with due diligence and impose a reasonable period of detention pending expulsion. Article 5 § 4 ECHR is breached if detained individuals can’t obtain a revision of their detention before a domestic court.
Except for very limited exceptions, the statutory three-year waiting period for family reunification of persons granted ‘temporary protection’ does not allow for an individualised assessment of the interest of family unity in light of the concrete situation of the persons concerned. Eventually the Court finds a violation of Article 8 of the Convention since the measure (whose goal is not otherwise challenged) had a disproportionate impact in the case at hand.
In the context of cessation of refugee status under Article 11 (1)(e), the change in circumstances must remedy the reasons which led to the recognition of refugee status; a country of origin’s ability or inability to demonstrate that it can provide protection from acts of persecution constitutes ‘a crucial element’ in this assessment.
Mere social and financial support to the third country national is inherently incapable of either preventing acts of persecution or of detecting, prosecuting and punishing such acts and, therefore, cannot be regarded as providing the protection required by Article 11(1)(e). In order to determine whether the third-country national still has a well-founded fear of persecution, the existence of protection against acts of persecution should be considered when examining the change in circumstances.
When analysing if protection from UNRWA has ceased (Article 12(1)(a) Directive 2011/95), account must be taken of the possibility for the individual to concretely access effective protection in any of the other fields within UNRWA area of operations.
Assistance from the Agency must be considered as maintained when an individual has left UNRWA area of operations from a field where he couldn’t obtain effective protection, if the person had previously voluntarily left a field where he could access UNRWA’s assistance, even though he could reasonably foresee, according to the information available for him at the moment of departure, that he wouldn’t be able to receive effective protection from the Agency in the field he was travelling to, or return to the field of origin in the short term.
A stateless person from Palestine who was registered by UNRWA and received its assistance shall not be excluded from refugee status when it is established that his personal safety in Palestine is at serious risk and it is impossible for UNRWA to guarantee that the living conditions, which has forced the individual to leave Palestine, are compatible with its mission.
From the available evidence, the Court concludes that UNRWA is unable to provide protection and assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
Slovakian authorities provided information and interpretation and there are no indications that these were inadequate to the extent of impairing the individual’s access to asylum. The applicant’s return to Ukraine was conducted in the context of a readmission framework and there was no reason for Slovakian authorities to be particularly alert regarding potential human rights violations in Ukraine.
However, there has been a procedural violation of Article 3 of the Convention by Ukraine on account of the Ukrainian authorities’ failure to examine the applicant’s claims of fear of persecution in Afghanistan properly before returning him there. Moreover, there has been a violation of Article 5 §§ 2 and 4 of the Convention by Ukraine.