European Court of Human Rights

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No.

February 2015

A.M.E. v. the Netherlands (dec.) - 51428/10

Decision 13.1.2015 [Section III] See: [2015] ECHR 192

Article 3

Expulsion

inadmissible

Facts - The applicant, who claims to be a Somali national, entered Italy in April 2009 in a group of about 200 people. The next day the local police took his fingerprints and registered him as having illegally entered the territory of the European Union. He was subsequently transferred to a reception centre for asylum-seekers, where he applied for international protection and was granted an Italian residence permit for subsidiary protection valid for three years. In May 2009 he left the reception centre for an unknown destination before applying for asylum in the Netherlands in October 2009. In April 2010 the Netherlands authorities requested the Italian authorities to take back the applicant under the terms of the the Dublin II Regulation.* As the Italian authorities failed to react to that request within two weeks, they were considered as having acceded implicitly to that request.

In his application to the European Court, the applicant complained that his transfer to Italy would be in breach of Article 3 of the Convention in that he risked to be exposed there to bad living conditions where no reception, care and legal aid were available for asylum-seekers.

Law - Article 3: Unlike the applicants in the case of Tarakhel, who were a family with six minor children, the applicant was an able young man with no dependents. As regards transfers to Italy under the Dublin II Regulation, the Netherlands authorities had decided in consultation with the Italian authorities how and when transfers of asylum seekers to the Italian authorities would take place and in principle three working days’ notice was given. Moreover, the situation in Italy for asylum-seekers could in no way be compared to the situation in Greece at the time of the M.S.S. judgment. The structure and overall situation of the reception arrangements in Italy could not in themselves act as a bar to all removals of asylum seekers to that country. Therefore, bearing in mind how he had been treated by the Italian authorities after his arrival in Italy, the applicant had not established that his future prospects, if returned to Italy, whether taken from a material, physical or psychological perspective, disclosed a sufficiently real and imminent risk of hardship severe enough to fall within the scope of Article 3. There was no indication that he would not be able to benefit from the available resources in Italy for asylum-seekers or that, in case of difficulties, the Italian authorities would not respond in an appropriate manner.

Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

(See Tarakhel v. Switzerland [GC], 29217/12, 4 November 2014, Information Note 179; and M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece [GC], 30696/09, 20 January 2011, Information Note 137; see also the Factsheet on “Dublin” cases)

* Council Regulation (EC) No. 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national.

 

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