ECtHR- Singh and Others v. Belgium, Application no. 33210/11, 2 January 2013

With regards to the alleged violation of Article 13 in relation to the applicants’ refoulement, the Court noted that such violation was lifted at the moment where the risk of removal to Russia had been suspended in application of the interim measure of 30 May 2011 [81]. Regarding the possibility that the applicants be admitted-voluntarily or otherwise-from India, the Court observed that the Belgian government hadn’t submitted any convincing argument that this could be a realistic alternative. It further highlighted that the Belgian authorities appear not to have examined the risks of treatment contrary to Article 3 in case of return of the applicants to a third country [83].

Concerning their fears in Afghanistan, the Court took note of the existing reports showing that the ethno-religious minority of Sikh was and continued to be subjected to discrimination, harassments and violence [87].

The general principles governing the effectiveness of remedies and guarantees provided by the Contracting States in case of deportation of an asylum seeker under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention include the availability and accessibility of recourse in law and practice, the competence of the national body to examine the contents of the complaint and offer the appropriate remedy and the automatic suspensive effect of the recourse [90-92]. In the case at hand, the Court concluded that the recourse against the measure of removal was not automatically suspensive from the execution of the measure of removal and therefore did not fulfil one of the requirements of Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 3 [97].

It further noted that neither CGRA nor CCE examined whether the applicants were at risk within the sense of Article 3, noting that this aspect was overshadowed at the level of CGRA by the examination of the applicants’ credibility and doubts concerning the veracity of their declarations. The CGRA had not made additional enquiries, for example to authenticate the identity documents presented, while the CCE had not made up for that omission. In its view, the documents submitted by the applicants had been capable of dispelling the doubts expressed by the CGRA as to their identities and previous movements. [100-101].

Therefore, it found a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3 of the Convention, given that the Belgian authorities did not examine  the merits of the applicants’ complaints under Article 3 in accordance with the requirements of article.