The European Commission has agreed to release five documents that the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) had requested concerning the UK opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Commission had initially refused to release them referring to the need to protect the legal advice it receives and its internal decision-making process.
The reference pertains to the interpretation of Article 15(c) of Directive 2004/83/EC and the clarification of the definition of "internal armed conflict". The Court essentially asks whether the definition of armed conflict under Article 15(c) should be linked to international humanitarian law or whether it should be interpreted autonomously. In the latter case, the Conseil d'Etat also asks what should be the criteria for such an autonomous interpretation.
UNHCR published on 17/07/2012 their Guidelines on Statelessness No.3: The Status of Stateless Persons at the National Level. These Guidelines are intended to provide interpretative legal guidance for governments, NGOs, legal practitioners, decision-makers and the judiciary, as well as for UNHCR staff and other UN agencies involved in addressing statelessness.
The Commission issued a joint communication to the EP, Council, European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions proposing a comprehensive approach in response to the Syrian conflict. The Commission calls on Member States to comply with UNHCR’s request that places be made available for the humanitarian admission of 10,000 Syrian refugees from countries in the Middle East and North Africa and the resettlement of an additional 2,000 Syrian nationals.
Last week the Committee of Ministers held its first Human Rights meeting in 2013, during which it supervised the execution of some asylum-related and other judgments of interest:
The new mechanism will enable a six month suspension of visa free travel for citizens of specified third countries. Two objectives of the mechanism are identified. (1) To encourage 'visa reciprocity', by reimposing visa requirements for nationals of countries that still impose them on EU citizens (e.g. the USA, which still imposes visa requirements on citizens from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania and Poland). (2) To 'halt substantial and sudden increases in irregular migrant numbers or unfounded asylum requests' from third countries ordinarily benefiting from the visa waiver.
In two cases this week, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) condemned Hungary for unlawfully detaining at the Debrecen Reception Centre for Refugees asylum seekers, pending the outcome of their asylum claims, without effective judicial review of their detention. Both cases concerned complaints under Article 5§ 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (right to liberty and security).
The applicant is an Uzbek national who was arrested in Moscow in June 2010 and placed in custody with a view to his extradition to Kyrgyzstan. He was released one year later, but then placed in custody again pending his extradition to Uzbekistan where he was wanted on fraud charges. An asylum claim he had filed was rejected in May 2011. Mr. Bakoyev alleged that, if extradited to Uzbekistan, he would face risk of ill-treatment and unfair trial. He also complained about his two detention periods pending extradition on account of their unlawfulness and excessive length.
The European Court of Human Rights is currently overloaded with cases (there were almost 150,000 pending applications at the end of March 2012). Some 90% of all applications are eventually declared inadmissible.
The European Parliament voted this week in favour of the new asylum legislation. The Parliament approved the recast versions of the Dublin Regulation, the Eurodac Regulation, the Asylum Procedures Directive and the Reception Conditions Directive. See the press release of the European Parliament.
