Case Law

20 April 2023 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Domestic violence - Forced marriage - Non-state agents of persecution - Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) - Social group persecution - Women-at-risk | Countries: Bulgaria - Türkiye

1. Article 23(1) of Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection, read in conjunction with Article 45(4) of that directive and in the light of the general principle of EU law relating to the right to sound administration and of Article 47 of the Charter, must be interpreted as: precluding national legislation which provides that, where a decision rejecting an application for international protection or withdrawing such protection is based on information the disclosure of which would jeopardise the national security of the Member State in question, the person concerned or his or her legal adviser can access that information only after obtaining authorisation to that end, are not provided even with the substance of the grounds on which such decisions are based and cannot, in any event, use, for the purposes of administrative procedures or judicial proceedings, the information to which they may have had access. 2. Article 4(1) and (2), Article 10(2) and (3), Article 11(2) and Article 45(3) of Directive 2013/32, read in conjunction with Article 14(4)(a) and Article 17(1)(d) of Directive 2011/95/EU of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted, must be interpreted as: precluding national legislation under which the determining authority is systematically required, where bodies entrusted with specialist functions linked to national security have found, by way of a non-reasoned opinion, that a person constituted a danger to that security, to refuse to grant that person subsidiary protection, or to withdraw international protection previously granted to that person, on the basis of that opinion. 3. Article 17(1)(b) of Directive 2011/95 must be interpreted as: not precluding an applicant from being excluded from being eligible for subsidiary protection, pursuant to that provision, on the basis of a criminal conviction of which the competent authorities were already aware when they granted to that applicant, at the end of a previous procedure, refugee status which was subsequently withdrawn.

22 September 2022 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Asylum-seekers - Exclusion clauses - International protection - National security / Public order - Statelessness | Countries: Hungary

This decision replaces all existing country guidance on Iraq.

22 April 2022 | Judicial Body: United Kingdom: Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): EU Qualification Directive - Internal flight alternative (IFA) / Internal relocation alternative (IRA) / Internal protection alternative (IPA) - Kurd - Travel documents | Countries: Iraq - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Articles 18 and 24 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), Articles 2, 20, 23 and 31 of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted (OJ 2011 L 337, p. 9), and of Article 25(6) and Article 33(2)(a) of Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 60).

22 February 2022 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Family reunification - Right to family life - Unaccompanied / Separated children | Countries: Austria - Belgium - Syrian Arab Republic

The request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 2 (j) of Directive 2011/95 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 concerning the standards relating to the conditions to be met by third country nationals or stateless persons in order to benefit from international protection, to a uniform status for refugees or persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and to the content of this protection

9 September 2021 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Evidence (including age and language assessments / medico-legal reports) | Countries: Afghanistan - Germany

1. The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to determine whether the protection or assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has ceased, it is necessary to take into account, as part of an individual assessment of all the relevant factors of the situation in question, all the fields of UNRWA’s area of operations which a stateless person of Palestinian origin who has left that area has a concrete possibility of accessing and safely remaining therein. 2. The second sentence of Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95 must be interpreted as meaning that UNRWA’s protection or assistance cannot be regarded as having ceased where a stateless person of Palestinian origin left the UNRWA area of operations from a field in that area in which his or her personal safety was at serious risk and in which UNRWA was not in a position to provide that individual with protection or assistance, first, if that individual voluntarily travelled to that field from another field in that area in which his or her personal safety was not at serious risk and in which he or she could receive protection or assistance from UNRWA and, secondly, if he or she could not reasonably expect, on the basis of the specific information available to him or her, to receive protection or assistance from UNRWA in the field to which he or she travelled or to be able to return at short notice to the field from which he or she came, which is for the national court to verify.

13 January 2021 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Exclusion clauses - Palestinian - Statelessness | Countries: Germany - Lebanon - Syrian Arab Republic

This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 9(2)(e) and (3) of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted (OJ 2011 L 337, p. 9).

19 November 2020 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2011 Recast Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): Military service / Conscientious objection / Desertion / Draft evasion / Forced conscription | Countries: Germany - Syrian Arab Republic

22 September 2020 | Judicial Body: Finland: Supreme Administrative Court | Legal Instrument: 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) | Topic(s): Family reunification - Unaccompanied / Separated children | Countries: Finland - Iraq

Article 9(3) of Directive 2011/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted is to be interpreted as meaning that there must always be a causal link between the reasons for persecution in Article 10(1) and the acts of persecution defined in Article 9(1), including in cases where an applicant for international protection seeks to rely on Article 9(2)(e) of that directive. – Where an applicant for asylum seeks to invoke Article 9(2)(e) of Directive 2011/95 as the act of persecution, reliance upon that provision does not automatically establish that the person concerned has a well-founded fear of persecution because he holds a political opinion within the meaning of Article 10(1)(e) thereof. It is for the competent national authorities, acting under the supervision of the courts, to establish whether there is a causal link for the purposes of that directive. In conducting that assessment the following factors may be relevant: whether the applicant’s home country is conducting a war; the nature and methods employed by the military authorities in such a war; the availability of country reports documenting matters such as whether recruitment for military service is by conscription; whether the status of conscientious objector is recognised under national law and, if so, the procedures for establishing such status; the treatment of those subject to conscription who refuse to perform military service; the existence or absence of alternatives to military service; and the applicant’s personal circumstances, including his age.

28 May 2020 | Judicial Body: European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union | Legal Instrument: 2004 Qualification Directive (EU) | Topic(s): EU Qualification Directive - Military service / Conscientious objection / Desertion / Draft evasion / Forced conscription - Persecution based on political opinion | Countries: Germany - Syrian Arab Republic