Case summaries

Applications for leave to remain were rejected as the Applicant had already been granted refugee status in another EU state. No grounds supporting an examination of the asylum applications in Sweden emerged in the case.

Instead of non-refoulement, the Court granted the Applicant subsidiary protection status because he would be at risk of serious harm upon returning to his home country (torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment).

The forced return of a Coptic Christian to Egypt would expose him to a risk of treatment contrary to Article 3 ECHR, but the processing of his asylum application through the fast-track procedure was not a violation Article 13 due to the almost 3 year delay in claiming asylum.

Applicant M was a citizen of Algeria who applied for a residence document in Finland on grounds of family relations. He/she was married to a sponsor called L and they had a joint minor child. L had another child from a previous marriage. A prerequisite for M to be granted a residence document was for him/her to have sufficient income, which he/she did not have. There was also the question of whether denying a residence document breached the Union citizen’s rights under Article 20 of the TFEU. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that denying a residence document did not breach the Unio citizen’s rights. In addition, there were no factors which would support deviating from the means of support prerequisite as stated in the law.

A person in detention pending deportation has a fundamental right to receive visitors -including visits from journalists -and inhibiting this visiting right for the person in detention can be challenged by way of appeal to the Independent Administrative Senate. A journalist, on the other hand, who has been refused a visit to someone in deportation detention, does not have a right of appeal, amongst other things, because the information which could be provided by the person in deportation detentionis not publicly accessible and there is thus no state obligation under Art 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to facilitate access to this information by granting a visit to the person in deportation detention.

This case concerned an application for a licence for a civil marriage with a Greek citizen where there was an inability to provide a certificate of being unmarried or a birth certificate because of disrupted relationship with homeland and in the context of the submission of a sworn statement regarding the absence of any impediment to marriage. The case considered the balance between the safeguards of family law and a State's obligation to protect the fundamental rights of refugees. Under the principle of proportionality, the private and family life of the individual is inviolable, bearing in mind that the lack of evidence of being unmarried should not prevent the him from being granted a licence to enter into a civil marriage with his partner, the mother of their two minor children which he has already voluntarily recognised. It is possible to substitute in concreto the said evidence with a simple sworn statement and, therefore, the Applicant does satisfy the legal requirements for the granting of a marriage licence.

Owing to a violation of the right to respect for private life, the expulsion of the Applicants was declared permanently unlawful. On the grounds of Art 8 of the ECHR, the Asylum Court emphasised the significance of illnesses and their treatment (outside the context of Art 3 of the ECHR) in the host country and in doing so also referred to the disadvantagouss effects of the discontinuation of  psychotherapy by the applicant mother on the child. With reference to the best interest of the child, the Asylum Court made it clear that, in the case of children, roots to the host country could be developed more quickly than for adults, in particular if especially formative parts of childhood and young adolescence were spent in the host country.

Application from the Turkish Authorities to have the Greek Judicial Authorities issue an extradition notice against A.F., a Turkish citizen seeking asylum in Greece.

The Court ruled against the Turkish Authorities' extradition request, deciding that if the person in question were extradited to Turkey there would be a risk that her situation would be made worse because of her political beliefs and because of her pending application to have her refugee status recognised by the Greek state.

In principle both parents may claim the right to join an unaccompanied minor refugee.  

This right to join a child will only apply up until the point that the latter comes of age.

Parents may present a claim for a visa by means of an application for temporary legal protection before the child comes of age. 

Recalling the direct applicability of the Qualification Directive (Article 28, 29, recital 34), the Labour and Social Court of Vienna held that the refusal of a care allowance for beneficiaries of subsidary protection status was unlawful. The (minimum) core benefits to be granted to beneficiaries of subsidary protection status are to include at least support in the event of illness, whereby in accordance with Community law, the Austrian care allowance represented such support in the event of illness.