A Syrian national, born in Masyaf (Homs Governorate) and later habitual resident of Aleppo, requested international protection in Austria on 20 October 2023. On 19 May 2024, the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) rejected his application for refugee status and subsidiary protection, denied him a residence permit under Section 57 of the AsylG, 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 this decision before the Federal Administrative Court, which dismissed the appeal on 1 July 2025 after two oral hearings. The court held that the applicant had not credibly demonstrated individual persecution relevant to asylum. It further found that the security situation in Aleppo was ‘stable' and that a return to Syria was both possible and reasonable. The court acknowledged occasional clashes in northern Syria but concluded that their intensity and duration did not pose a real risk of violation of Articles 2 or 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The applicant lodged a constitutional complaint before the Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof – VfGH), claiming that the Federal Administrative Court's finding of stability in Aleppo contradicted the country-of-origin information (COI) available from the German federal states. Also, the applicant claimed that the Federal Administrative Court made no findings whatsoever on the current economic situation in Syria, thus failing to conduct essential investigations to its decision, neither providing any justification for such omission. 

The Constitutional Court recalled its established case law under Article I(1) of the Federal Constitutional Act implementing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibited unjustifiable distinctions between aliens and required equal treatment. It emphasised that arbitrariness arises when a lower court omits essential investigative steps, disregards decisive evidence, or departs recklessly from the case file.  

In assessing subsidiary protection under Section 8 of the AsylG, the court identified 3 decisive elements that the lower court had failed to examine. 

First, the court noted that the lower court had limited its reasoning to a bare assertion of stability in Aleppo by merely reproducing excerpted findings of the Lander documentation without substantiating its assumption. Also, the court noted that the lower court had failed to address available COI, such as the EUAA, COI Report - Syria: Country Focus (March 2025) which indicated that numerous security incidents occurred in Aleppo, making it the governorate with the highest number of this kind of incidents. The court emphasized that special attention should be paid to UNHCR and EUAA reports, particularly in rapidly changing security contexts, and that reliance on outdated COI undermined the validity of decisions. 

Second, the court further held that the lower court had failed to examine the economic and supply situation in Syria, and that the widespread destruction of infrastructure makes a safe and dignified life impossible.  

Third, the court held that the lower court omitted any analysis on the accessibility of the region of origin of the applicant, including whether safe entry into Syria and onward travel to Aleppo was possible without risk of violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR.   

The court held that, by omitting these decisive points, the lower court decided arbitrarily, violating the applicant's constitutionally guaranteed right to equal treatment of aliens.  

The court ordered an examination of the security situation in the applicant's region and the individual supply situation together with safe accessibility. 

The Constitutional Court annulled the Federal Administrative Court's decision insofar as it dismissed the complaint against the refusal to grant subsidiary protection. It held that the applicant's right to equal treatment of aliens under Article I of the Federal Constitutional Act had been violated. The court refused to hear the part of the appeal concerning the rejection of the application for refugee status as it considered that it was not relevant to elucidate the constitutional issues raised.