Case summaries
A court may dismiss the appeal without further proceedings in a non-public session, if the appeal does not depend on the solution of a legal question that is of fundamental significance.
In the case of an Afghan, the appeal does not depend on the solution of a fundamental question, if the lower instance has sufficiently examined the situation in the appellant’s country of origin. This is the case, if the court sufficiently considered possible internal flight alternatives by air.
An applicant that has received protection on behalf of UNRWA is not required to prove a fear of persecution to be recognised as a refugee; the asylum authorities have to examine whether the applicant was actually receiving UNRWA protection and whether that protection has ceased.
An individual examination of the case will reveal whether the cessation of UNRWA protection resulted from objective reasons that the agency could not rectify.
The Dutch Council of State does not consider ‘the best interest of the child’-criteriοn automatically fulfilled, in the context of a Dublin transfer, when an unaccompanied minor can be transferred to an adult family member in another MS. In turn, it considers that the authorities have to substantially and individually investigate whether the best interest of the child is respected when transferring.
Since there is a high risk of exposure to inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 ECHR and Article 4 CFREU, Portugal should not allow the applicant’s transfer to Italy. The Court also found that there had been a violation of his right to a prior hearing, and that there is no obligation under EU Law of asylum seekers’ transfer once the DRIII is applied.
In the case of an Afghan Shia Hazara applicant, the Belgian Council for Alien Litigation considered that the request for international protection was based on several sources of fear, which must be analysed in combination with each other, forming a cluster of concordant evidence.
The Council granted the applicant refugee status.
The application of provisions on preclusion must always be decided without discretionary error. If the lower court does not make any discretionary considerations at all for its decision to apply a provision on preclusion when rejecting evidence due to a missed time-limit, it infringes the petitioner’s right to be heard under Article 78(2) of the Saxon Constitution (SächsVerf).
The Council of State applies the reasoning of ECtHR and CJEU jurisprudence to the reception conditions in Hungary to conclude that there may be a risk of ill-treatment upon return (Article 3 ECHR / Article 4 CFREU infringement) when a particularly vulnerable person who is fully dependent on state support will be confronted with "official indifference in a situation of serious deprivation or want incompatible with human dignity” upon return to Hungary.
An asylum seeker is entitled to request the temporary termination of his or her stay in an accommodation centre and to seek alternative accommodation if compliance with the distancing rules of the Saxon Corona Protection Ordinance is not possible in the centre.
The fact that an asylum seeker has already been persecuted in the past or has been subject to direct threats of persecution, was considered as a well-founded argument to believe that the applicant would face the risk to be persecuted under Article 1, Section A §2 of the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Article 48 para. 3 sentence 2 and 3 AufenthG does not offer a suitable legal basis for the search of homes.
The issue of a search warrant according to police and public order law requires concrete evidence that certain documents could be detected. The violation of the obligation to cooperate according to § 48 para. 3 sentence 1 AufenthG (refusal of the applicant to obtain a passport or similar), as well as vaguely expressed doubts of the authorities about the passport loss, are not sufficient to issue a warrant for the search of homes. Such a search warrant is in any case not proportionate if the probability of detection is low.