Case summaries
The case examines allegations of the indiscriminate expulsion of foreign nationals from Italy to Greece who had no access to asylum procedures and who subsequently feared deportation to their countries of origin. In regards to four of the applicants, the Court held that Greece violated Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or regarding treatment). It also held that Italy violated Articles 13 and 3 as well as Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 (prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens.)
The ECtHR holds that Russia is in violation of Article 5 ECHR and of Article 4 of Protocol 4 through the implementation of an unlawful administrative practice against a large number of Georgian nationals as a means of identifying them. This led to the arrest, detention and collective expulsion of 4634 Georgians from the Russian Federation and further violations of Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that Spain violated the right to an effective remedy of 30 asylum seekers of Sahrawi origin who faced removal to Morocco before a thorough examination of their asylum application. It was only the ECtHR’s intervention that halted their deportation.
The case examined the allegations of three applicants of Chechen origin that their deportation to Russia would place them in conditions amounting to inhumane and degrading treatment. Their allegations were based on the general situation of Chechens in Russia as well as on an individual risk of the first applicant because of his documentary work, recording the execution of villagers by the Russian federal troops.
The Court found that the deportation of the applicants to Russia would give rise to a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Asylum seeker’s return to Iran would not violate Article 2 or 3 because the risk of political persecution was unsubstantiated and peripheral and his conversion to Christianity was likely unknown to the authorities.
The seven year time lapse since the Sunni Muslim Applicant’s former service in the Iraqi army, no evidence of future risk arising from previous injuries, and no medical reasons preventing return, led the majority to find that return to Iraq would not violate the applicants rights under Articles 2 or 3.
Internal contradictions in the Sunni Muslim Applicant’s account, coupled with the time lapse since the relevant acts of persecution, led the majority to conclude that his return to Iraq, despite former employment with US-backed security companies, would not violate Articles 2 or 3.
An application for international protection lodged by an Afghan who illegally entered Austria was rejected. The Court found that the applicant had no well-founded fear of persecution in his country of origin nor was he to be granted the subsidiary protection status.
This case involved a violation of the right to equal treatment of foreigners as a result of a rejection of the application for international protection and expulsion of the homosexual Applicant to Nigeria because of a failure by the decision-maker to make its own country determinations and to thoroughly examine the situation of homosexuals in Nigeria.
On the basis of personal circumstances and improvements in the general security situation in Mogadishu, the Applicant would not be at risk of treatment contrary to Articles 2 or 3 ECHR if deported from Sweden to Somalia.