Case summaries

The return of a survivor of trafficking and gender-based violence to the country of original harm under the Dublin III Regulation violates Articles 2(d) and 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, unless the state conducts an individualized, trauma-informed, and gender-sensitive assessment of the real risk of retraumatization.

Relying on general assumptions about adequate reception conditions in the receiving state is insufficient where capacity gaps in specialized psychological care exist. The non-refoulement obligation requires assessing real, personal, and foreseeable risks of gender-based violence, including from non-state actors, and prohibits removal where formal legal protections cannot guarantee safety given the individual's extreme vulnerability.

Complaint under Article 3 ECHR concerning the conditions of detention of a Turkish national in the Czech Bělá-Jezová detention centre declared inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. Failure to conduct an independent, thorough and victim-accessible investigation into allegations of police ill-treatment at Prague Airport amounts to a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 ECHR. Alleged ill-treatment by police officers does not amount to a violation of the substantive aspect of Article 3 ECHR, as the ECtHR cannot establish beyond reasonable doubt that the force used, including pepper spray, was excessive.

The absence of food provision raised an issue of Article 3 in respect of the first applicant, given his state of total dependency on the Hungarian government during his stay at the Röszke transit zone. The physical conditions of the container in which the family stayed in, the unsuitable facilities for children, irregularities in the provision of medical services, and the prolonged stay in the area amounted to a violation of Article 3 in respect of the applicant mother and the children.

The family’s stay at the Röszke transit zone amounted to deprivation of liberty due to, inter alia, the lack of any domestic legal provisions fixing the maximum duration of the applicants’ stay, the excessive duration of the applicants’ stay and the conditions in the transit zone. Their deprivation of liberty was unlawful under Article 5 (1), as there was no strictly defined statutory basis for the applicants’ detention and no formal decision complete with reasons for detention had been issued by the Hungarian authorities.

Article 5 (4) was also violated because he applicants did not have avenue in which the lawfulness of their detention could have been decided promptly by a court.

Foreign asylum seekers without employment have a right to be exempted from the payment of health care contributions under Art. 8(16) of Law No. 537/1993, irrespective of whether they are seeking a job for the first time or have worked in the past. The entitlement to this benefit depends solely on the condition of “non-employment” under Art. 19(1), (2) and (7) of Legislative Decree 150/2015 and to the declaration by the non-employed individual of their availability to work. Denying this benefit to jobless asylum seekers amounts to discrimination.