Belgian CALL rules on case of inadmissibility due to international protection status granted by another Member State

Date: 
Monday, August 20, 2018

On 20 August 2018, the Belgian Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL) ruled in case no. 207 875 regarding two Syrian nationals, who had applied for international protection in Belgium. The Belgian authorities had initially rejected their application as inadmissible, due to the fact that the two applicants had been granted subsidiary protection status in Spain.

Indeed, according to the applicants’ own statement, they had been granted subsidiary protection status by Spain on 15 March 2017. After their rejection, they appealed before the CALL contesting the decision on the basis of a lack of information regarding the current validity of their subsidiary protection status. The Belgian authorities, however, argued that a granted status of subsidiary protection already offers significant guarantees regarding the protection of the applicants’ rights. Moreover it noted that despite the real lack of information, the burden of proof and duty to cooperate with the State, still lies with the applicants.

The Council, however, agreed with the applicants, attaching more importance to the lack of information per se. Regardless of the subsidiary protection status of the applicant being unquestionable, the fact that there is no way for the authorities to ascertain whether this status is still in effect in Spain is of central importance to the admissibility of their request. As such, their request cannot be deemed inadmissible, as long as the administrative file of the applicants cannot prove that they still enjoy international protection in another Member State.

Many thanks to Ruben Fierens,former AIDA Legal Officer at ECRE, for helping us with the translation and summary.


This item was reproduced with the permission of ECRE from the weekly ELENA legal update. The purpose of these updates is to inform asylum lawyers and legal organizations supporting asylum seekers and refugees of recent developments in the field of asylum law. Please note that the information provided is taken from publicly available information on the internet. Every reasonable effort is made to make the content accurate and up to date at the time each item is published but no responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by ECRE.

                                                     

 

Keywords: 
Inadmissible application
Individual assessment
Responsibility for examining application
Subsidiary Protection