The applicants, Iranian nationals, a woman and her two sons, have initially been rejected international protection as their conversion to Christianity was found implausible. In a subsequent application, the State Secretary considered that the applicants did not adduce sufficient proof for a different decision. The applicants appealed against the inadmissibility decision and argued that they had submitted plenty of information to substantiate that they have continued to practise their Christian faith after the first asylum application was rejected. The applicants considered that their proofs demonstrate a growth in faith that should have been duly assessed by the State Secretary. On the contrary the State Secretary stated that the applicants did not present any new facts or elements in their subsequent application.
The case reached the Council of State which ruled that although the State Secretary does not have to assess the content of the same asylum report twice, however the situation is different when an applicant submits new evidence or new developments about which the determining authority must conduct an assessment.
The Council of State noted that the applicants rightly argue that new elements and findings can also influence the way in which the data from the previous procedure should be assessed. The new elements and findings in combination with the information from the previous procedure are forming a new set of information about which the State Secretary has to conduct a new credibility assessment. The established credibility assessment in the first application does not automatically set certain data, because the combination of old and new data can lead to new findings.
The Council of State further considered that the State Secretary has attached too much importance in its working methods to the fact that it found the conversion implausible in the first assessment, in a previous asylum procedure. The Council of State considered that the starting point for a subsequent application is the previous one, but statements about growth in faith may lead to a different assessment because third country nationals could have become more religious and could better explain their conversion in a subsequent application. The Council of State considered that statements about growth in faith can generally be sufficient for a new substantive credibility assessment of the conversion. The Council of State ruled that the State Secretary must then assess the statements from the earlier and subsequent asylum procedure jointly.
The Council of State considered that increased knowledge and activities are the expressions of a continuing process of conversion in the case of the applicants and that the State Secretary in his policy on growth of faith has insufficiently recognised the importance of a procedure-transcending integral credibility assessment. According to the Council of State, all information provided by the applicants about the three elements of a conversion (motives for and process of conversion, knowledge and activities) can give rise to further investigation in a subsequent procedure. The issue to be clarified by the determining authority is whether that information, in combination with the data from the previous procedure, leads to a different outcome of the credibility assessment.
The Council of State referred the case back for re-examination by the State Secretary and instructed that first the admissibility of the application shall be assessed. Namely, the Council of State will analyse if two cumulative requirements are met. First, the elements and findings presented must be new compared to the previous procedure. Secondly, those elements and findings must be relevant to the assessment of the application. The Council of State made reference to the CJEU judgement in LH v Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid, C-921/19, 10 June 2021.