EDAL case summaries

The applicant, a national from Sierra Leone who claimed asylum in Switzerland on the grounds of persecution owing to his homosexuality, is found not to be at risk of treatment prohibited under Article 3 of the Convention in case of return to his country of origin. In substance, the Court recalls that national authorities are in the best position to carry out this risk assessment and recalls the UNHCR Guiding Principles on asylum claims based on sexual orientation, which require the evaluation of the risk through individual assessment, in addition to the examination of the country’s...

The Supreme Administrative Count in the case concerning housing for a refugee ruled that the applicant, as a refugee, has found herself in a very specific situation, which was not taken into account by the authority. The applicant was not able to submit all the documents and information about the members of the family who stayed in Chechnya in order to obtain housing. It is beyond any doubt that the applicant and her children cannot live with their relatives, because other members of their family are in Chechnya, so the missing information could not have had any influence on the case...

The European Court of Human Rights found that extraditing a Kyrgyz national of Uzbek ethnic origin from Russia to Kyrgyzstan would give rise to inhumane and degrading treatment prohibited by article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It was also found that the repeated delays by the Russian authorities in hearing the applicant’s appeals against his detention in Russia constituted a violation of his article 5 para 4 rights to a speedy judicial decision on the lawfulness of the applicant’s detention between January 2013 and January 2014.

This case concerned forced child labour in ther country of origin and sexual exploitation of the daughter of an Ethiopian father and an Eritrean mother, strained relations between the two countries, mass expulsions on the basis of ethnic origin, absence of a family network in the country of origin, total illiteracy, unequal treatment of single women, and an inability to integrate into society.

In relation to the absence of a family network, the case considered the stigma which may be suffered as a member of the particular social group of “single women in Ethiopia”.

Should she...