Case summaries

The CJEU ruled on whether an individual could appeal a decision which refused refugee status but granted subsidiary protection status, even if the rights and benefits afforded by each international protection status are identical in national law.

CJEU rules on the correct processing of applications for international protection lodged separately by family members and the interrelationship between them.

CJEU rules that Hungarian national law which defines ‘serious crime’ (in the context of exclusion from subsidiary protection) as a crime with a possible custodial of 5 years sentence as incompatible with the Qualification Directive. Instead, each crime must be looked at on an individual basis to ascertain its “seriousness”.  

Where a person is registered with UNRWA and then later applies for international protection in a European Union Member State such persons are in principle excluded from refugee status in the European Union unless it becomes evident, on the basis of an individualised assessment of all relevant evidence, that their personal safety is at serious risk and it is impossible for UNRWA to guarantee that the living conditions are compatible with its mission and that due to these circumstances the individual has been forced to leave the UNRWA area of operations. 

The fact that a person cannot be repatriated under Article 3 of the ECHR does not imply that that person should be granted a leave to reside in the host country by way of subsidiary protection under Directive 2004/83. The person concerned is eligible for subsidiary protection only if there is a real risk of him being intentionally deprived, in his country of origin, of appropriate health care.

An asylum applicant who is below the age of 18 at the time of his or her entry into the territory of a Member State and of the introduction of his or her asylum application in that State, but who, in the course of the asylum procedure, attains the age of majority and is thereafter granted refugee status must still be regarded as a “minor” for the purposes of that provision.

The exhaustion of domestic remedies is a prerequisite for the admissibility of applications lodged with the ECtHR under Article 35 ECHR. Removal of individuals suffering from severe medical problems may not be considered inhumane in the meaning of Article 3 ECHR, when suitable treatment exists in the country of origin.  

An asylum applicant who was a victim of previous persecution in their country of origin can be granted refugee status under article 1, C 5) of the Geneva Convention. This is because, due to the severity of the treatment applied, the applicant’s fear is exacerbated to such an extent that, even if the persecution has ceased to exist, a return to the country of origin would be unthinkable. 

An application for asylum filed prior to 20 July 2015 cannot be considered inadmissible because subsidiary protection has already been granted by another Member State (if the protection applied for is more favourable than the existing protection). The assessment of the admissibility of an application for asylum filed prior to 20 July 2015 is subject to the laws, regulations and administrative provisions adopted pursuant to the now superseded Asylum Procedures Directive (Directive 2005/85/EU) which provided for inadmissibility of an application for asylum if refugee status had already been granted by another Member State. 

This case examines the refusal to grant international protection status to a physically disabled, single Egyptian woman. The OIN failed to provide clear, detailed reasoning why the Applicant did not meet the legal conditions to acquire subsidiary protection status in Hungary.

The Metropolitan Court of Public Administration and Labour granted subsidiary protection status to the Applicant and concluded that based on cumulative grounds the Applicant would be subject to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if she returned to Egypt.