CJEU: Case C-573/14 Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides v Mostafa Lounani

Date: 
Tuesday, January 31, 2017

On 31 January 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in the case Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides v. Mostafa Lounani.
 
The case concerns a Moroccan national whose application for international protection was rejected by the Belgian Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons as he was convicted of participating in a terrorist group – the Moroccan Islamist Combatant Group. The acts committed included inter alia ‘providing logistical support to a terrorist group by the provision of, inter alia, material resources or information’ and ‘active participation in the organisation of a network for sending volunteers to Iraq’.
 
The Council of State referred a request for preliminary ruling to the CJEU on the basis of the scope of the exclusion clauses in the Qualification Directive and the Refugee Convention to include these terrorist-related acts other than acts of terrorism.
 
The CJEU held that ‘acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations’, as provided for in Article 1F(c) of the Geneva Convention and in Article 12(2)(c) of Qualification Directive cannot be limited to the acts set out in Security Council Resolutions. Article 1 of the Council Framework Decision 2002/475 contains four subsets of terrorist offensives, only subset 1 of which relates to acts of terrorism. The Court held that Article 12(2)(c) and Article 1F(c) could not be limited to Article 1(1) of the Framework Directive. Furthermore the Court held that the provisions were in existence at the time the Qualification Directive was drafted and if the legislators had wanted to restrict the scope of Article 12(2)(c) to Article 1(1) of the Framework Directive, then they could have done so.
 
The scope of the exclusion clauses cannot be confined to acts of terrorism but must also extend to the ‘recruitment, organisation, transportation or equipment of individuals who travel to a State other than their States of residence or nationality for the purpose of, intealia, the perpetration, planning or preparation of terrorist acts.’
 
The Court reiterated the test for an individual assessment as laid down in B & D. The decision as to whether conduct falls within the scope of Article 12 of the Qualification Directive is that of the national authorities and courts. However, of importance to the individual assessment of whether there are serious reasons for considering that a person has committed acts contrary to the purpose and principles of the UN by the national authority is whether such a person ‘has instigated such acts or has otherwise participated in such acts, the fact that the person was convicted by the courts of a Member State on a charge of participation in the activities of a terrorist group is of particular importance, as is a finding that that person was a member of the leadership of that group, and there is no need to establish that that person himself or herself instigated a terrorist act or otherwise participated in it.’
 
For more information see a new EDAL blog on Exclusion Clauses and Terrorism under EU Law and EDAL case summary.



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Keywords: 
Exclusion from protection
Terrorism