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24/03/2020
ECHR: Afghani nationals were not subjected to collective expulsion when they were returned from Slovakia to Ukraine.

ECLI
ECLI:CE:ECHR:2020:0324JUD002491715
Input Provided By
EUAA IDS
Type
Judgment
Original Documents
Relevant Legislative Provisions
European Convention on Human Rights
Reference
Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR], Asady and Others v Slovakia, Application no. 24917/15, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2020:0324JUD002491715, 24 March 2020. Link redirects to the English summary in the EUAA Case Law Database.
Permanent link to the case
https://caselaw.euaa.europa.eu/pages/viewcaselaw.aspx?CaseLawID=1019
Case history
Other information
Abstract

According the Court's Press Release


The applicants are 19 Afghan nationals born on various dates between 1980 and 1999. In November 2014 the applicants were found hidden in a truck by the Slovak Border and Foreigners Police near the border with Ukraine. The applicants were part of a group of 32 people who were subsequently taken to the border police station in Petrovce to establish their identities. The police subsequently issued individual decisions on the administrative expulsion of each applicant with a three-year ban on re-entry. They were removed to Ukraine late in the evening of the same day they had been apprehended and were placed in temporary detention in the town of Chop. Twelve of the people apprehended at the same time as the applicants asked for asylum and were transferred to an asylum-seekers’ reception centre. The first four applicants appealed against the Slovakian administrative expulsion decisions, alleging violations of Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights, taken in conjunction with Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 (prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens) to the Convention. The Slovak border police directorate dismissed their appeals in January 2015.


The Court did not find that the applicants had been deprived of the possibility to draw the attention of the national authorities to any circumstance which might have affected their status and entitled them to remain in Slovakia, or that their removal to Ukraine had been carried out without any form of examination of their individual situation. The Court held by a majority that had therefore been no violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4.


The Court noted that it had not been persuaded that the applicants’ expulsion had been collective. Nor had they raised any separate complaints under Article 2 (right to life) or Article 3 (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment) of the Convention. The Court thus found that the applicants did not have an arguable claim under Article 13. It therefore by a majority rejected the complaint under that provision as being manifestly ill-founded and thus inadmissible.


Country of Decision
Council of Europe
Court Name
CoE: European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR]
Case Number
Application no. 24917/15
Date of Decision
24/03/2020
Country of Origin
Keywords
Afghanistan
Detention/ Alternatives to Detention
Effective remedy
Non-refoulement
Return/Removal/Deportation
Source
HUDOC ECHR
Other Source/Information
ECHR Press Release