Case summaries
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.
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.
National authorities are best placed to assess the credibility of asylum claimants.
The ill-treatment of people of non-Arab ethnic origin in Sudan is not systematic. Therefore, when the personal circumstances of an applicant that may create a risk of persecution are insufficiently substantiated, the applicant’s removal to Sudan will not give rise to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.
Not all cases with an international element can establish jurisdiction under the Convention; an assessment of exceptional circumstances on the basis of the specific facts of each case is required.
The applicants do not have any connecting links with Belgium and their sole presence in the premises of the Belgian Embassy in Lebanon cannot establish jurisdiction, as they were never under the de facto control of Belgian diplomatic or consular agents. Jurisdiction under Article 1 ECHR cannot be established solely on the basis of an administrative procedure initiated by private individuals outside the territory of the chosen state, without them having any connection with that State, nor any treaty obligation compelling them to choose that state.
The standardised nature of the questions to the applicants and similarities in the responses recorded do not necessarily indicate a lack of individualised assessment. The applicants were not deprived of an opportunity to submit arguments against their expulsion and did not make any claim of persecution risks in their country of origin. No collective expulsion under Article 4 Protocol 4 has been established.
Similarly, no violation of Article 4 Protocol 4 in conjunction with Article 13 has been established, as the claim cannot be considered arguable.
An application for a revision of a final court decision of the Swiss Federal Court is only admissible if the applicant presents new relevant facts or evidence which he was not able to provide in previous proceedings even if he had acted with due diligence.
If the new evidence relates to another person’s hearing files (in the case at hand a relative’s hearing protocol before the Swiss asylum authority) the fact that the files could not be retrieved during the proceedings cannot be attributed to the applicant if he lacked the required consent from the person concerned to access the files. By rule of principle, it is the asylum authority’s duty to consult relevant documents for the assessment of an application which is notably the case for statements made by family relatives if the factual circumstances on which the respective applications are based are closely related.
The Court found no violation of the Convention given that the applicants would have had access to a genuine and effective possibility of submitting arguments against their expulsion had they entered lawfully into Spain – they did not have any “cogent reasons” for not using the border procedures available at designated entry points. As such, the lack of an individualised procedure for their removal was the consequence of their own conduct.
The administrative detention of an Afghan national was imposed on the basis of a procedural error due to the lack of relevant documentation and unjustified information by the French authorities (Prefect and Prosecutor).
When State Parties do not examine an application for international protection in its mertis based on a safe third country clause, Article 3 still requires that they apply a thorough and comprehensive legal procedure to assess the existence of such risk by looking into updated sources regarding the situation in the receiving third country. Hungary violated Article 3 by failing to conduct an efficient and adequate assessment when applying the safe third country clause for Serbia.
Article 5 cannot be considered as ratione materiae applicable to the Röszke transit zone; the applicants' stay there involved a short waiting time in order for Hungary to verify their right to enter, they had entered on their own initiative and they were free to leave the area in the direction of Serbia. The conditions in the transit zone were not found to breach Article 3 because of the restrictive measure's short duration, the possibility for human contact and the applicants' awareness of the procedure.
The CJEU ruled on the scope of the right to an effective remedy provided for in Article 39 of the Asylum Procedures Directive and in Article 13 of the Returns Directive.