Case summaries
Article 1F of the Refugee Convention relates to the application of a definition and not whether an individual seeking asylum should obtain protection or not. Therefore, and with regards to Article 1F(b), any post-offence conduct does not serve to mitigate the seriousness of an alleged non-political offence. No doctrine of expiation is to, thus, be applied to Article 1F(b).
The term serious used in Article 1F(b) denotes especially grave offending and requires no further qualification by the term “particularly."
Whilst the Appeals Committee believes that the applicant was ‘wronged’ during the administrative procedures in the First and Second Degree (pursuant to Decree 113/2013), the Committee is unable to request a new personal interview, because no such provision exists within the national legislation (Regulation Service of Authority and Appeal 339/2013 opinion of the Legal Council).
The obligations imposed by Article 3 ECHR do not prevent contracting states from taking into account the possibility of relocation. Where appropriate, contracting states can expect an applicant to relocate to another part of his country of origin in order to avoid persecution.
This Case examines the refusal to grant refugee status to a Nepalese national. The Tribunal failed to provide clear, cogent reasoning for the decision. Documentation and explanations provided by the Applicant were not included in the decision. Unreasonable assumptions were made by the Tribunal including: as the Applicant’s wife, children and brother were safely residing in the country of origin, this inferred that the Applicant could do the same; since the applicant spent 6 years living safely in India, he could continue to live there safely. The High Court criticised the procedural approach by the Tribunal and the lack of coherent reasoning provided. The High Court granted leave and quashed the Tribunal’s decision.
The French National Asylum Court (the “CNDA”) must assess whether or not the applicant should be granted refugee status or, failing that, subsidiary protection,taking into account all the factual on the basis of the circumstances which are known to the CNDA when it rules. In order to assess the accuracy of the facts reported by an applicant, the CNDA must take into account all evidence presented by an applicant in support of his application. In particular, when an applicant produces circumstantial evidence relating to the alleged risks that he is likely to face if he returns to his country of origin, the CNDA must – after assessing the credibility of such evidence and analysing it in light of the reported facts – assess the potential risks which the facts reveal and, as the case may be, indicate the elements that led the CNDA to consider these risks to be not sufficiently serious.
The case is a referral back to the CNDA from the Council of State in no. 350661 where the Council had found the CNDA to have erred in law in a previous appeal (no. 10012810) by finding that Nigerian women, who were victims of human trafficking networks and who had actively sought to escape the network, constituted a social group within the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The CNDA found that victims of trafficking from the Edo State do, indeed, share a common background and distinct identity which falls within the definition of a particular social group. The applicant was given refugee status.
The judgment concerns the status of military deserters under the Qualification Directive (2004/83/EC) and the definition to be accorded to persecutory acts following on from a refusal to perform military service. Whilst the definition of military service is to include support staff the CJEU has held that there must be a sufficient link between the asylum seeker’s actions and the preparation or eventual commission of war crimes.
The individual must establish with sufficient plausibility that his unit is highly likely to commit war crimes and that there exists a body of evidence capable of credibly establishing that the specific military service will commit war crimes. Moreover, desertion is the only way to avoid participation in war crimes and disproportionate and discriminatory acts should be assessed in light of a State’s domestic prerogatives.
The Supreme Court held that the National High Court of Spain (Audiencia Nacional) erred in annulling the General Deputy Director of Asylum’s decision to reject the Appellant’s request for international protection because the National High Court of Spain failed to consider the substance of the Appellant’s request for asylum.
The Supreme Court declared that the National High Court erred when annulling the decision of the General Sub-Directorate for Asylum (Ministry of Interior) to reject the Appellant’s request for international protection. The National High Court annulled the decision but did not consider the Appellant’s core claim: the request for international protection.
As the National High Court was in possession of all necessary facts required to decide on the substance of the request by the Appellant for international protection, it should have been able to determine as such. As a result, the Supreme Court upheld the appeal.
The case concerns an appeal of an Algerian woman to the Council of State, against a decision taken on the 17 June 2013 by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA), who rejected the appeal against the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Person’s (OFPRA) decision concerning the applicant’s application for asylum.
The Council of State annulled the decision of the CNDA, stating that before finding the existence of a reasonable possibility for the applicant to find internal protection in another region of her country of origin, the Court should have looked into which part of the Algerian territory the applicant could, in all safety, access, settle, exist and lead a normal family life without the fear of being persecuted or being exposed to the risk of serious violence from her ex-husband.