Title CASE OF ILIAS AND AHMED v. HUNGARY (Application no. 47287/15) (Grand Chamber)
Publisher Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights
Publication Date 21 November 2019
Country Bangladesh | Greece | Hungary | North Macedonia | Serbia | Republic of Türkiye
Topics Expulsion | Freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment | Rejection at border | Right to liberty and security | Safe third country | Transit
Citation / Document Symbol ECLI:CE:ECHR:2019:1121JUD004728715
Other Languages / Attachments Legal Summary
Related Document(s) Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary  |  Submission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the case of Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary (Application No. 47287/15) before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights  |  Recommendations by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ('UNHCR') concerning the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in the cases of Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary (Application No. 47287/15; Grand Chamber judgment of 21 November 2019) and Shahzad v. Hungary (Application No. 12625/17; Judgment of 8 July 2021)  |  H46-11 Ilias and Ahmed group v. Hungary (Application No. 47287/15) - Supervision of the execution of the European Court's judgments
Cite as CASE OF ILIAS AND AHMED v. HUNGARY (Application no. 47287/15) (Grand Chamber), ECLI:CE:ECHR:2019:1121JUD004728715, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 21 November 2019, available at: https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,5dd6b4774.html [accessed 18 May 2023]
Comments The Court found in particular that the Hungarian authorities had failed in their duty under Article 3 to assess the risks of the applicants not having proper access to asylum proceedings in Serbia or being subjected to chain-refoulement, which could have seen them being sent to Greece, where conditions in refugee camps had already been found to be in violation of Article 3. In a development of its case-law, it held that Article 5 was not applicable to the applicants’ case as there had been no de facto deprivation of liberty in the transit zone. Among other things, the Court found that the applicants had entered the transit zone of their own initiative and it had been possible in practice for them to return to Serbia, where they had not faced any danger to their life or health. Their fears of a lack of access to Serbia’s asylum system or of refoulement to Greece, as expressed under Article 3, had not been enough to make their stay in the transit zone involuntary.
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