Tag Archives: Asylum Seeker
5 November 2014
On 4 November 2014, the ECtHR decided in the case Tarakhel v. Switzerland that Switzerland would be in violation of Article 3 ECHR if it would send back the applicants, a family from Afghanistan with six children, to Italy without obtaining individual guarantees from the Italian authorities that they can be together as a family in Italy and that the facilities and conditions the family would be in would be adapted to the age of the children. (more…)
Source: ECtHR | TARAKHEL v. SWITZERLAND | Application No. 29217/12 | Judgment | 4 November 2014
27 May 2014
According to an independent review, no single party can be blamed directly for the violence that resulted in the death of the Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati, during a riot in February 2014 at the Manus detention centre. The Australia-backed camp is located in Papua New Guinea. At the time it was run by the British-based security contractor G4S PLC under a contract with Australia. (more…)
Source: The Wall Street Journal | 'Frustration' Sparked Riots at Australian-Backed Detention Center
Source: The Guardian | Manus unrest: no single party to blame for violence, review finds
27 April 2014
On 23 April 2014, it was reported that an Armenian asylum seeker committed suicide in the Netherlands last December. He was due to be reported to Germany pursuant to the Dublin Regulation.
He was under the supervision of the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service, who were aware that he had serious psychiatric problems. However, he was not given specialist help since he fell under the Dublin Regulation, according to which Germany was responsible for him.
The Dublin Regulation stipulates that asylum seekers must request refugee status in the first member state of the European Union in which they arrive.
Source: NRC | Asielzoeker die onder toezicht overheid stond, pleegde zelfmoord
18 November 2013
On 14 November 2013, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) held in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland v. Kaveh Puid case that a member state which is prohibited from returning an asylum seeker under the Dublin II Regulation to a country where the applicant would be at risk of being ill-treated, is not, in principle, obliged to assume responsibility for that application.
In those circumstances, as already stated in 2011 in C-411/10 N.S. and C-493/10 M.E. and others, and reiterated by the CJEU in its current ruling, the member state intending to send the asylum seeker back to another country must continue to examine the responsibility criteria set out in the Dublin Regulation to see if another member state can be made responsible.
If no other country can be identified as responsible for examining the application, the member state where the asylum seeker is located must assume responsibility for examining the application. The member state must also assume responsibility if the process of determining responsibility takes ‘an unreasonable length of time’.
Source: Court of Justice of the European Union | Judgment in Case C-4/11 | Press Release No 147/13 | Bundesrepublik Deutschland v Kaveh Puid | Luxembourg, 14 November 2013
11 June 2013
On 6 June 2013, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) found that Austria violated an asylum seeker’s right to an effective remedy (Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights) against the decision to be sent back to Hungary under the Dublin regulation.
The applicant, a Sudanese asylum seeker, had also presented a claim of possible ill-treatment and refoulement (Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights) in Hungary if returned under the Dublin regulation. The ECtHR held that his transfer would not violate Article 3.
Source: European Court of Human Rights | Case of Mohammed v. Austria | Application no. 2283/12 | Judgment | 6 June 2013