The case concerned a request for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 10(1)(e) of the recast Qualification Directive and the content of the protection granted. The proceedings at the national level concerned two applicants from Sudan, S and A, whose requests for refugee status based on persecution due to political opinions were dismissed by the State Secretary for Security and Justice in the Netherlands.

The first applicant, S, claimed in her fourth request for asylum that, if she were to be returned to her country of origin, she would be persecuted by the authorities due to political activities carried out in the Netherlands for the Umma Party, which belonged to the ‘Forces of Freedom and Change’ alliance and coordinated the Sudanese revolution that occurred in 2019, and also due to her political activities for the Association for Darfur in the Netherlands. S did not claim in her applications that she had been persecuted in her country of origin due to political opinions expressed there or that the political opinions that she expressed after departure from her country had come to the attention of the authorities. The State Secretary for Security and Justice rejected her application as it considered that her statements did not stem from political opinions worthy of protection, that she had not indicated that they were of fundamental importance to her and she had not specified which activities she intended to carry out based on those opinions.

The second applicant, A, claimed that he would be persecuted by the authorities due to his critical opinions expressed in the Netherlands on the political situation in Sudan and his initiatives in favour of the rights of the Al-Gimir tribe in West Darfur. His application was rejected as the State Secretary considered that he had not sufficiently proved that his activities in the Netherlands stemmed from fundamental political opinions.

The Dutch Council of State referred the following questions to the CJEU:

1. “Must Article 1(10)(e) of [Directive 2011/95] 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?”

The CJEU ruled that Article 10(1)(e) and (2) of the recast Qualification Directive must be interpreted as meaning that, “in order for the opinions, ideas or beliefs of an applicant who has not yet attracted the negative interest of the potential actors of persecution in his or her country of origin to fall within the concept of ‘political opinion’ or ‘political characteristic’, it is sufficient for that applicant to claim that he or she has or expresses those opinions, thoughts or beliefs. That is without prejudice to the assessment of whether the applicant’s fear of being persecuted on account of his or her political opinions is well founded.”

The CJEU also held that Article 4(3) to (5) of the recast Qualification Directive “must be interpreted as meaning that, for the purposes of assessing whether an applicant’s fear of persecution on account of his or her political opinions is well founded, the competent authorities of the Member States must take account of the fact that those political opinions, owing to the degree of conviction with which they are expressed or the possible engagement by that applicant in activities to promote those opinions, could have attracted or may attract the negative interest of the actors of potential persecution in that applicant’s country of origin. It is not however required that the same opinions be so deeply rooted in the applicant that he or she could not refrain, if returned to his or her country of origin, from manifesting them, thereby exposing himself or herself to the risk of suffering acts of persecution within the meaning of Article 9 of that directive.”