Court of Human Rights deals major blow to Dublin system

The European Court of Human Rights has dealt a major blow to the Dublin system in a judgement that destabilises the automatic right of EU member states to automatically transfer asylum seekers between EU countries.

The case of M.S.S. v Belgium & Greece concerned an Afghan asylum seeker who fled Kabul in 2008, entered the European Union through Greece and traveled on to Belgium where he applied for asylum.

According to the Dublin Regulation the first Member State that an asylum seeker enters should be the one to examine the asylum application. Belgium returned M.S.S to Greece in June 2009, where he was detained in degrading and overcrowded conditions before living on the streets without any material support.

The Court confirmed that MSS was exposed to inhuman and degrading treatment (in violation of Article 3 of the Convention), and that his right to an effective remedy (Article 13 of the Convention) was violated.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles said the EU must now “seriously rethink the Dublin system and replace it with a regime that ensures the rights of asylum seekers are respected”.

The judgment can affect many asylum seekers in Europe. In 2010 alone, EU countries requested Greece to examine the applications of almost 7,000 asylum seekers who had entered the EU through Greece. Their situation will now need to be re-examined in light of this ruling.

The ruling means European countries must comply by not sending asylum seekers back to Greece, and examine asylum applications themselves until a fair asylum system is in place in Greece.

Pending this judgment and other court challenges, several European countries including the UK, Sweden, Belgium, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands had suspended transfers of asylum seekers to Greece and also Malta. Germany took a similar step this week.