Germany: Administrative Court of Dusseldorf suspends Dublin transfer to Hungary

Date: 
Friday, October 2, 2015

On 3 September 2015, the Administrative Court of Dusseldorf in Germany ruled against the accelerated transfer of an asylum seeker from Germany to Hungary under the Dublin Regulation. Its decision is based on evidence of existence of systemic failings in the asylum system in Hungary and the risk of removal from Hungary to an unsafe third country following recent changes to the law in Hungary. The ruling has suspensive effect.

The Court highlighted a number of recent reports from civil society, including UNHCR, theHungarian Helsinki Committee and Amnesty International and AIDA on the situation in Hungary. In the Court’s view, these represented sufficient evidence of systemic failings in the Hungarian asylum procedure flowing from the entry into force of changes to Hungarian asylum law on 1  August 2015. In particular, Hungary’s inclusion of Serbia on a list of ‘safe third countries’ constituted a danger that the asylum seeker would not have access to a procedure in which a substantive evaluation of the reasons for seeking asylum would be conducted. There was a risk, for example, that the asylum seeker would be removed to Serbia by the Hungarian authorities without a substantive evaluation of the asylum claim in line with minimum European standards. The Court then made reference to the opinion of the European Commissioner for Human Rights that it was especially doubtful that, in Serbia, the asylum procedure and the reception conditions would meet those minimum European standards.

If transferred to Hungary, the Court found that the asylum seeker would face a real danger of removal to an unsafe third country, and thereby ultimately the risk of further removal to the country of origin, without the guarantee of a substantive assessment of the asylum claim. This would therefore violate the principle of non-refoulement.

The Court, having granted suspensive effect to prevent transfer, decided that further examination by the lower court was required regarding the substantive question of whether, and with what probability, the asylum seeker in his particular case as a Dublin returnee was exposed to such a danger.

Based on an unofficial ELENA translation. The ELENA Weekly Legal Update would like to thank David Watt for his assistance with this summary. 


This item was reproduced with the permission of ECRE from the weekly ELENA legal update supported by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Funding Programme and distributed by email. The purpose of these updates is to inform asylum lawyers and legal organizations supporting asylum seekers and refugees of recent developments in the field of asylum law. Please note that the information provided is taken from publicly available information on the internet. Every reasonable effort is made to make the content accurate and up to date at the time each item is published but no responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by ECRE, the IRC or its partners.

                                                     

 

Keywords: 
Dublin Transfer
Effective access to procedures
Safe third country