A Russian national of Chechen origin requested international protection in Belgium on 29 March 2022, claiming a fear of being persecuted due to his father’s political profile. He also added that he feared the uncertainty as to how the war between Russia and Ukraine will develop and to the imminent threat that the conflict will expand at some point leading to a general mobilisation which would oblige him to fight in the war. His parents were beneficiaries of refugee protection in Belgium and he was sentenced in Belgium for several crimes, including rape.
By decision of 11 August 2022, the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS) rejected the request holding that the applicant’s fear of being sent to Ukraine was purely hypothetical and that, according to the objective information available to the Commissioner General, there was no general mobilisation of conscripts in Russia. The applicant appealed the decision.
The Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL) allowed the appeal and sent the case back to the CGRS. It held that a partial mobilisation was proclaimed in Russia in September 2022 and that there was at least the suspicion that the official mobilisation criteria were not always correctly applied by the Russian authorities and it was also impossible to obtain a clear view of the treatment of returning male Russian nationals after a long stay abroad.
The Council noted that it had too little information, because of the circumstances in which the partial mobilisation was unfolding in Chechnya, the applicant’s region of origin. Furthermore, the fact that the applicant was 27 years old and still in a Belgian prison for some time was without prejudice to the fact that there was no objective information on the actual implementation of the mobilisation carried out by the Russian authorities. The Council considered that the situation was so volatile and uncertain that it could not be ruled out that the conflict would continue to expand, that there may be a general mobilisation or an increase in the age of military service.
As the Council lacked the necessary powers of investigation, it sent the case back to the CGRS.