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Home ›Netherlands: Dublin transfer of vulnerable asylum seekers to Italy without individual guarantees regarding their reception conditions in breach of Article 3 ECHR
On 18 July 2016, the District Court of The Hague ruled upon the requirement of individual guarantees regarding the Dublin transfers of vulnerable asylum seekers to Italy.
The asylum application lodged on behalf of a mother and her underage daughter was rejected in the Netherlands because Italy was deemed responsible for the examination of their asylum application. Relying on the specific requirements following from the Tarakhel v Switzerland (no. 29217/12), the applicant contends that the Dublin transfer to Italy would be in breach of Article 3 ECHR. She submitted that the State Secretary of Security and Justice could not have relied on the Circular Letter: Guarantees for vulnerable cases; family groups with minors of 8 June 2015 because this Circular letter did not provide for individual guarantees.
In its letter of 23 June 2016, the State Secretary argued that he was not expecting individual guarantees additional to the Circular letter and would only discontinue the Dublin transfer if the Italian authorities inform them about the lack of specialised reception facilities. According to the State Secretary, this practice is in accordance with several judgments of the Council of State.
The District Court, however, considers that the State Secretary is obliged to request individual guarantees from the Italian authorities when there is a clear reason to doubt the availability of appropriate reception facilities. In its letter, the State Secretary informed the Court that 64 vulnerable asylum seekers had been transferred to Italy from the Netherlands between 20 May 2015 and 21 June 2016. The aforementioned Circular however sets out that Italy has only 85 available reception facilities. The State Secretary should have requested individual guarantees in accordance with the Tarakhel judgment because it is highly unlikely that there will be enough facilities available. It follows that, were the applicant to be returned to Italy without having first obtained individual guarantees from the Italian authorities that they would be taken charge of in a manner adapted to the age of the child and the family would be kept together, there would be a violation of Article 3 ECHR.
The Court obliges the State Secretary to reconsider the decision in light of this judgment.
The ELENA Weekly Legal Update would like to thank Flip Schüller, lawyer at Prakken d’Oliveira, for bringing this to our attention. Based on an unofficial translation by the ELENA Weekly Legal Update.
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