Case registered before the CJEU as Case C-8/22

By decision of 23 February 2007, the applicant was recognised as a refugee by the ʻCGRAʼ. On 20 December 2010, he was sentenced by the Brussels Assize Court to 25 yearsʼ imprisonment.

On 4 May 2016, the CGRA withdrew his refugee status pursuant to Article 53/3/1 of Law of 15 December 1980 on the entry to Belgian territory, stay, residence and removal of foreign nationals. Paragraph 1 of that provision states: ʻThe Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons may withdraw refugee status where a foreign national, having been convicted by final judgment of a particularly serious offence, represents a danger to the community or when there are reasonable grounds for regarding him as a danger to national securityʼ.

The applicant lodged an appeal before the Council for Asylum and immigration proceedings (CALL), which dismissed it by the judgment under appeal. The applicant claimed that the withdrawal of his status can not be solely based on the conviction, but that CGRA and CALL should have carried out a proper assessment on whether he constituted a danger to the community.

The case reached the Council of State which decided to seek interpretation from the CJEU and referred the following questions:

1. Must Article 14[(4)(b)] 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, be interpreted as providing that danger to the community is established by the mere fact that the beneficiary of refugee status has been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime or must it be interpreted as providing that a conviction by a final judgment for a particularly serious crime is not, on its own, sufficient to establish the existence of a danger to the community?

2. If a conviction by final judgment for a particularly serious crime is not, on its own, sufficient to establish the existence of a danger to the community, must Article 14[(4) (b)] of Directive 2011/95/EU be interpreted as requiring the Member State to establish that, since his or her conviction, the applicant continues to constitute a danger to the community? Must the Member State establish that the danger is genuine and present or is the existence of a potential threat sufficient? Must Article 14[(4)(b)], taken alone or in conjunction with the principle of proportionality, be interpreted as allowing revocation of refugee status only if that revocation is proportionate and the danger represented by the beneficiary of that status sufficiently serious to justify that revocation?

3. If the Member State does not have to establish that, since his or her conviction, the applicant continues to constitute a danger to the community and that the threat is genuine, present and sufficiently serious to justify the revocation of refugee status, must Article 14[(4)(b)] of Directive 2011/95/EU be interpreted as meaning that danger to the community is established, in principle, by the fact that the beneficiary of refugee status has been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime [,] but that he or she may establish that he or she does not constitute, or no longer constitutes, such a danger?