Italy: Court of Rome upholds appeal against transfer of Afghan national to Norway, where his application had been rejected
On 5 June 2018, the Ordinary Court of Rome ruled in case no. 58068/2017, which concerned an appeal against the decision to transfer an Afghan asylum applicant to Norway, where his first asylum application was rejected and his removal order to Afghanistan is pending.
First, the Court of Rome noted, as per the CJEU’s interpretation in C-578/16 C.K. and others, that Article 17 of the Dublin III Regulation is an integral part of the Dublin system, and that Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union can be engaged even where there are no substantial grounds for believing that there are systemic flaws in the Member State responsible for examining the application for asylum.
Second, the Court observed, based on available country of origin information with regard to Afghanistan, such as the annual report of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and a report from Human Rights Watch, that returning the applicant, who is a young male without a network of support in Afghanistan, would put him in risk of death and of violation of his fundamental rights. According to the Court, it would be contrary to Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to ignore the concrete risk of inhuman or degrading treatment solely based on the lack of systematic deficiencies in the Member State concerned (in casu, Norway).
Thus, the Court concluded that sending the applicant to Norway in application of Article 23 of the Dublin III Regulation could result in risk of violation of his fundamental rights. It follows, therefore, that the national authorities must rely on the discretionary clause under Article 17 DRIII in this case.
Based on an unofficial translation by the ELENA Weekly Legal Update. The EWLU would like to thank Sofia Bonatti, Legal Officer at ECRE, for her kind assistance summarising this case.
▻https://mailchi.mp/ecre/elena-weekly-legal-update-29-june-2018#9
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