A Syrian national from the village of Mas'adah in the governorate of Al-Hasakah, requested international protection in Austria on 11 October 2022. On 12 January 2024, the Federal Office for Immigration and Immigration Asylum (BFA) rejected granting international protection, did not issue a residence permit, issued a return decision, declared removal to Syria admissible and set a period of 14 days for voluntary departure. The applicant lodged an appeal against BFA’s decision before the Federal Administrative Court. On 17 April 2025, the court dismissed the appeal. In its reasoning the court acknowledged that since the collapse of the Assad regime, Syria was no longer in a situation of civil war. The court also acknowledged that violent conflicts between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) had arisen around the cities of Aleppo, Manbij and Kobane, and that the Kurdish troops east of the Euphrates had been pushed back. However, the court held that this did not affect the applicant’s place of origin. It considered that it could not be inferred from the country reports that the security situation in the Kurdish-controlled part of Syria was so unstable that any return would be associated with a violation of the right to life and the prohibition of torture under Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court also acknowledged that the supply situation in Syria, according to the country of origin information (COI) reports, was precarious throughout Syria due to food shortages and high food prices. However, the court considered that, based on the applicant's personal circumstances (healthy and able to work) it could not be concluded that he would be in a life-threatening situation if he returned to Syria. According to the court, Syria could be reached via Damascus airport; from there, the applicant could travel to the area controlled by the SDF and to his home village. The applicant lodged a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof – VfGH).

The court recalled that Article I(1) of the Federal Constitutional Act implementing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination prohibits unjustifiable distinctions between foreigners and requires equal treatment, except where objectively reasonable and proportionate grounds exist. 

The Constitutional Court emphasized that arbitrariness arises when a lower court omits essential investigative steps or disregards decisive evidence. It found that the Federal Administrative Court made such an error. The court noted that the lower court dealt only with security-relevant incidents outside the applicant's region of origin, specifically around Deir Ez-Zor and in the eastern parts of Aleppo. The court noted that the lower court did not further discuss the security situation in the applicant’s region of origin, that is Mas'adah in the governorate of Al-Hasakah. The court held that the lower court did consider that according to the EUAA COI Report - Syria: Country Focus (March 2025), there were still clashes, especially with the SDF, even after the fall of the Assad regime, and that there have been several security incidents in Al-Hasakah, Deir Ez-Zor and in the eastern parts of Aleppo. The court emphasised that according to its established case law, special attention must be paid to the reports of the UNHCR and the EUAA when assessing applications for international protection. It noted that this was particularly true in a situation in which there have been serious changes in the balance of power in the country of origin. According to the court, the information sheet of the State Documentation, which was the most up-to-date at the time of the contested decision, was still based on a situation prior to those changes, rendering its reliability at least partly questionable. The court concluded that due to the inadequate examination of the security situation in the applicant's region of origin as well as the inadequate examination of how the applicant could safely reach the region of origin, in each case against the background of relevant current COI reports such as that of the EUAA, the lower court failed to conduct investigations on decisive points and disregarded the specific facts of the case, thereby exercising arbitrariness as a whole.

In conclusion, the Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional complaint and annulled the decision of the Federal Administrative Court for violating the constitutionally guaranteed right to equal treatment of foreigners.