Vreemdelingenrecht.com - het weblog

Luxemburg, 21 december 2011, C-411/10 N.S. / Secretary of State for the Home Department en C-493/10 M.E. e.a. / Refugee Applications Commissioner Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Het Hof merkt op dat niet elke schending van het asielrecht volstaat om de overdracht van een asielzoeker aan de normaal gesproken bevoegde lidstaat te verhinderen. Dit zou namelijk de verplichtingen van de staten in het gemeenschappelijk Europees asielstelsel elke inhoud ontnemen en de verwezenlijking van het doel, snel te bepalen welke lidstaat bevoegd is, in gevaar brengen. Het Hof is echter van oordeel dat het Unierecht in de weg staat aan een onweerlegbaar vermoeden dat de op basis van de verordening verantwoordelijke lidstaat de grondrechten van de Europese Unie eerbiedigt. De lidstaten, daaronder begrepen de nationale rechterlijke instanties, mogen een asielzoeker namelijk niet aan de verantwoordelijke lidstaat overdragen wanneer zij niet onkundig kunnen zijn van het fei...

On the UK-Poland Protocol The second aspect of the judgment, albeit one given short shrift, concerns the UK-Poland Protocol on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. A key question in the  British litigation  was whether that Member State has an effective opt-out from the Charter. The Court was clear that it does not. This conclusion is  hardly surprising  – as the Advocate General declared in her Opinion – the question is “easily answered”. Despite the rhetoric of various British politicians (including former Prime Minister Tony Blair) the Protocol simply does not read as an opt-out as it seeks to clarify the application of the EU Charter. The judgment in  NS  simply confirms that plain reading. The ECJ did deftly avoided any decision on the more controversial question of the social and economic rights contained in the Charter and their application in Britain. Those rights are likely to be the subject of future litigation and in that field the Protocol...

Last Wednesday, the European Court of Justice issued a flurry of judgments just before the Christmas break. Indeed, there were so many interesting and important decisions amongst the twenty or so handed down that seems foolish to consider any of them the ‘most important’. Nonetheless the judgment in  NS and Others v SSHD   (C-411/10) must be a contender for the title. The case concerns an asylum seeker in Britain who first entered the EU through Greece. The Dublin Regulation, which governs this aspect of EU asylum law, would ordinarily dictate that the applicant should be sent to Greece to have his asylum claim considered there. However, Mr Saeedi challenged his transfer to Greece, claiming that his human rights would be infringed by such a transfer as Greece would be unable to process his application.  NS  was joined with an Irish case,  ME & Others v Refugee Applications Commissioner & MEJLR  (C-493/10), which raised similar questions for EU ...