France - Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon, 13 March 2018, nos 17LY02181 – 17LY02184

The Court firstly examines the applicants’ procedural history and notes that they had made an asylum application in Finland which was rejected by the Finnish authorities and which was accompanied by a return decision. The Administrative Tribunal and the Supreme Administrative Court had also rejected the applicants’ appeals against the State’s decision. An entry ban to Finland for a duration of two years was also given to the applicants. The Court holds that the rejection of an asylum claim and the existence of a return decision and entry ban do not lead to the cessation of responsibility of the requested Member State (Finland here). Article 19 of the DRIII only applies where the return decision was actually executed and the individual had left the EU territory. Any application after this would be considered a new one and a new determination procedure would follow. In this case, the Prefect was correct in stating that the Tribunal judge had incorrectly held that a return decision and entry ban given by Finland amounted to an obstacle to Finland’s responsibility for the claims.

Moving onto the substance of the applicants’ claims, the Court held that, from the information presented, armed clashes, which amount to an internal armed conflict, prevail throughout the whole territory of Afghanistan. According to the annual report of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the security and humanitarian situation throughout the country has not stopped getting worse over the last few years. Insurgent groups as well as governmental forces are responsible for the significant number of deliberate attacks on the civil population. Attacks which continuously rise compared to previous years. It is also clear from the documentation submitted that the situation in the region and in the city of Kabul is susceptible to being qualified as indiscriminate violence resulting from an internal armed conflict. With this in mind, the French Prefect, in deciding to transfer the applicants back to Finland where they had received a negative decision on their claim, had committed an obvious error in his assessment as to whether France was responsible for the claim despite another State being otherwise responsible. The transfer decision was thus unlawful, leading to its rejection.