Germany - Federal Administrative Court, 25 June 2012, 10 B 6.12

Under the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) it is stated that the shifting of the burden of proof according to Article 4 (4) of the Qualification Directive is to be taken into account in asylum proceedings when the Applicant refers to previous acts of persecution or threats as an indicator of the well-foundedness of his fear that persecution would resume if he were to return to his home country. Previous activities and threats of this kind must be linked to the grounds for persecution on which the application is based (CJEU, decision of 2 March 2010 - Rs. C-175/08 u.a., Abdulla u.a. Rn. 93).

On the basis of these principles, the Higher Administrative Court assumed that the threat facing the Claimants in the event of their return would correspond to a continuation of the danger which forced them to leave the country in spite of the changes in the interim with regard to the actors of persecution and the intensity of the threat of persecution. There were no substantive grounds to suggest that they would not be threatened by persecution upon returning to their country. The Higher Administrative Court justified this opinion on the basis that the Claimants had been threatened with direct persecution linked to their ethnicity at the time of their departure as at the time the Russian security forces generally considered Chechens as hostile since they were not actively involved on their side. Therefore, the persecution presumed by the Higher Administrative Court was not only linked with the Chechen ethnicity of the Claimants but also with the enmity generally expressed by the persecuting security forces against this ethnic group and their presumed political convictions. According to the Higher Administrative Court, the same applied to the potential danger from the Chechen security forces facing the Claimants in the event of their return to Chechnya.