Case registered under C-151/22

The applicants, Sudanese nationals, applied for asylum claiming persecution based on political opinion but the State Secretary rejected it by decision of 30 August 2019 and an entry ban was ordered against the applicant. The State Secretary considered that a political opinion and the resulting activities must be 'fundamental' in order to be protected under Refugee legislation, meaning that a political opinion and the resulting activities can justify refugee protection only if they are so fundamental to the identity or moral integrity of a foreign national that he should not be required to give up or hide those beliefs and activities.

The Council of State stayed the proceedings and seeks interpretation on the definition and explanation of the persecution ground for political conviction under Article 10, first paragraph, preamble and under e, of Directive 2011/95/EU and the related assessment of the merits of the fear of persecution. The question is whether in the case where a third country national is not yet in the negative interest of the authorities in the country of origin and relies on being first in the host country manifested political conviction, a foreigner must make plausible that that conviction is of a certain strength and needs to be protected as a refugee under EU law. In this connection the courts referred to the wording in English for 'strength of conviction', French for 'force de conviction' and the German from 'Stärke der Überzeugung'.

The Council of State addressed the following questions:

1. Must Article 10(1)(e) of the Qualification Directive be interpreted as meaning that political opinion as a reason for persecution may also be invoked by applicants who merely claim to hold a political view, and/or to express such a view, without having attracted the negative interest of an actor of persecution during their residence in their country of origin and since their residence in the host country?

2. If the answer to Question 1 is in the affirmative, and a political view is thus sufficient to qualify as a political opinion, what weight must be given to the strength of that political view, thought or belief and to the importance to the foreign national of the activities stemming from it in the examination and assessment of an asylum application, that is to say, the examination of the reality of that applicant’s alleged fear of persecution?

3. If the answer to Question 1 is in the negative, is the criterion then that such a political opinion must be deeply rooted, and if not, what is the relevant criterion and how is it to be applied?

4. If the criterion is that the political opinion must be deeply rooted, can an applicant who fails to demonstrate that he or she holds a deeply rooted political opinion be expected to refrain from expressing that political opinion upon return to the country of origin, so as not to arouse the negative interest of an actor of persecution?