On 16 February 2024, an Israeli national requested international protection in Latvia, but the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) rejected it on 1 August 2024. On 13 December 2024, the applicant submitted a subsequent application, due to the ongoing war in his country of origin, and also by reporting in an email of 17 December 2024 to have been victim of racist attacks, and an attempted abduction by three Palestinians which allegedly happened on 10 October 2023 .
On 8 January 2025, the OCMA rejected the subsequent application claiming that no significant new information was presented by the applicant and considering that the potential threats received were personal disputes, not warranting international protection. The applicant appealed before the District Administrative Court. The District Administrative Court examined whether the OCMA’s lawfully rejected the application without assessing its merit and whether the applicant had pointed out to circumstances that had significantly changed and could justify reconsideration of the application.
The court reviewed the facts as submitted for the first asylum application and the alleged new facts as presented in the email of 17 December 2024 where he emphasised on incidents of racial attacks before 7 October 2023 and an abduction attempt of 10 October 2023, by three Palestinians.
The District Court referenced to the CJEU judgement XY (C-18/20, 9 September 2021) to reiterate that the CJEU clarified that circumstances that arose after the completion of the procedure concerning the previous application for international protection should be considered as new elements and facts, but also elements or facts that existed before but were not mentioned by the applicant during that procedure.
The court found that the new facts submitted by the applicant existed before the request for international protection but were not disclosed during the first proceedings. It further reiterated that the Asylum Law, Article 12 (1)(2) provides for the obligation of the asylum applicant to disclose all necessary information as soon as possible. In this case, the court noted that the applicant did not fulfil this obligation and did not present reasons for withholding these facts and revealing it only by email of 17 December 2024. The court explained that when such elements are disclosed only after a final decision is taken, it may be considered as an indication of an abuse of the asylum procedure, but such conclusion shall be drawn only after careful examination of the individual circumstances of the case.
The court noted that OCMA mainly questioned the credibility of these facts but failed to provide supporting arguments in its negative decision. It also stated that the attempted abduction of the applicant should not be classified as a "personal dispute" if this fact was proven to be true, therefore its credibility required separate evaluation. The court held that if the circumstances mentioned by the applicant were deemed credible and assessed with other established facts and country-of-origin information, such examination could potentially lead to a different solution, potentially serving as basis for granting international protection. Considering the above, the court upheld the applicant’s appeal and noted that OCMA should reconsider the merits of the applicant’s subsequent application.