Case summaries
This judicial review case quashed a Refugee Appeals Tribunal decision on the basis that the Tribunal member incorrectly made credibility findings regarding the applicant’s claim without a fully reasoned consideration of the country of origin information and a flawed reliance on inconsistencies in an Iranian Court document.
When enforcing the Dublin III Regulation, the deporting country must verify whether the asylum procedure in the intermediary country sufficiently guarantees that the applicant will not be subject to a treatment which violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The deportation order was illegitimate due to inadequate conditions for the reception of asylum seekers and recognised refugees in Greece and the serious risk of inhuman or degrading treatment for asylum seekers and recognised refugees in Greece.
The Czech Regional Court dealt with an application concerning the unlawfulness of a decision taken under § 129 (1) of the Aliens Act. After engaging in textual and teleological analysis of the said national provision, the Court concluded that because the Member State failed to establish objective criteria for assessing the risk of absconding, the rule laid down in Article 28 of the Dublin III Regulation is not applicable in the Czech Republic.
The Prague Regional court quashed a Dublin transfer decision in respect of a family of four Yazidi adults to Bulgaria. Firstly, the court held that the Ministry of Interior had paid insufficient consideration to whether the Bulgarian asylum system ensures adequate health care for one of the Applicants, suffering from a psychological disorder. Secondly, the court found that the Applicants were not subject to personal interviews in the proceedings concerning their Dublin transfer, thus violating their right to a fair trial.
The operation of an effective legal system for the detection, prosecution and punishment of acts constituting persecution or serious harm and access to such system by the claimant may not, in a given case, amount to protection. Article 7(2) of the Qualfication Directive is non-prescriptive in nature. The duty imposed on states to take “reasonable steps” imports the concepts of margin of appreciation and proportionality.
The Appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal on the ground that he qualified for subsidiary protection under Article 2(e) and (f) of the Qualification Directive and was therefore entitled to a residence permit under Article 24(2) of the Qualification Directive.
In dismissing the appeal, the Tribunal found that: (a) Article 24 of the Qualification Directive does not confer a substantive right of residence in the member state concerned but rather its function is to determine the modalities whereby a right of residence otherwise existing is to be documented, and (b) the Procedures Directive is a truly adjectival instrument of EU legislation which does not create any substantive rights in the realm of asylum or subsidiary protection.
A span of more than three-years between the filing of the appeal against the expulsion order and the original scheduling of the initial oral hearing of such appeal violated a plaintiff’s right to a trial without undue delays, in accordance with the criteria identified by the Spanish Constitutional Court in its settled case-law for determining whether a procedural delay is undue. These criteria consider, among others, the complexity of the case, the average duration of similar proceedings and the nature of the plaintiff’s interest at stake.
The procedural guarantee in Art. 4 of the Dublin Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 is mandatory. The guarantee concerns the asylum seekers right to information when they present an application for international protection.
This safeguard is not respected solely because the applicant has undergone a personal interview, he needs to be given the “Common Leaflet”. This aims at guaranteeing that the information has been delivered in a proper way and in a clear and objective manner.
Upon preliminary examination, it cannot be excluded that a decision of an administrative court, limited to making a Dublin transfer conditional upon the assurance of the competent authorities in the country of destination that accommodation will be provided for the family in question, violates the right to an effective remedy under Art. 19(4)(1) of the Basic Law.
Since the removal might lead to severe disadvantages for the applicants which cannot easily be compensated for and which outweigh the consequences of a preliminarily prolonged presence of the persons concerned, the removal has to be suspended until the Federal Constitutional Court has reached its final decision.
The presumption that Italy remains in compliance with its EU and International Law obligations related to the reception and integration of asylum seekers and Beneficiaries of International Protection has not been rebutted. Asylum seekers and BIPs suffering from severe psychological trauma can be returned to Italy with no real risk of breaching article 3 ECHR, or 4 CFREU, since the Country's reception capacities have not been exceeded, while effective medical treatment is available under the same terms as to Italian nationals.