Information Note on the Court’s case-law 241

June 2020

N.H. and Others v. France - 28820/13, 75547/13 and 13114/15

Judgment 2.7.2020 [Section V]

Article 3

Degrading treatment

Asylum-seekers living rough for several months without resources due to administrative delays preventing them from receiving the support provided for by law: violation, no violation

Facts – The applicants, five single men seeking asylum in France, were destitute and forced to sleep rough in the street for several months. They criticised the French authorities, first, for not enabling them to benefit in practice from the material and financial support due to them under domestic law and European Union (EU) law, in order to meet their basic subsistence needs and, secondly, for showing indifference towards them.

Law – Article 3: The obligation to provide accommodation or decent material conditions to destitute asylum-seekers was binding on the respondent State concerned under the domestic legislation, which transposed the relevant EU law, namely the “Reception Directive”.

Unlawful migrants who wished to seek asylum in France first had to apply for an asylum-seeker’s residence permit. There was a time-limit of 15 days, from the time the would-be asylum-seeker presented an address and the requisite documents at the Prefecture, for the authorities to register the asylum application and authorise the person to reside legally. At the relevant time, in practice, this period averaged between 3 and 5 months, depending on the Prefecture. This period had lasted over three months for N.H. and more than four months for K.T. A.J. had been given an asylum-seeker’s provisional residence permit after three months. Lastly, S.G. had obtained an acknowledgement of his asylum application after one month. N.H. and A.J. had lodged urgent applications asking the administrative court to order the prefect to speed up the processing of their files but had been unsuccessful.

Prior to the registration of their asylum applications, the applicants had not been able to prove their status as asylum-seekers or therefore to enjoy the statutory reception conditions. N.H., K.T. and A.J. had lived in fear of being arrested and deported to their countries of origin.

Throughout the asylum procedure the applicants had all been living rough (A.J. for more than five and a half months, N.H. for more than eight and a half months, S.G. and K.T. for at least nine months each). The offer of emergency accommodation had been highly insufficient and intended for those asylum-seekers who were particularly vulnerable on account of their age, health or family situation (families with minor children).

Moreover, domestic law provided that the asylum-seekers’ Temporary Allowance (ATA) was conditional upon the presentation to the Job Centre of an asylum-seekers’ residence permit and proof that an application had been made to the Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). However, asylum-seekers were nevertheless precluded from exercising a professional activity for the duration of the procedure. Being destitute and in order to provide for their basic needs, they had been fully dependent on the material and financial support due to them under national law once they had been authorised to reside in France as asylum-seekers. S.G. had been granted the ATA two months after his first visit to the prefecture; N.H. had never received it in spite of his claims; K.T. and A.J. had received the allowance only after 185 and 133 days, respectively.

After the applicants had obtained asylum-seeker status, they were able to prove the lawfulness of their residence and benefit from the material reception conditions due to them under domestic law.

For the respondent Government, the present cases had to be distinguished from the situation in the case of M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece because the French authorities, faced with a significant increase in the number of asylum-seekers between 2007 and 2014, had not been inactive. In addition, the applicants had not been denied any prospect of seeing their situation improve, for as long as their asylum applications were pending. The Court found that the number of asylum-seekers had been continually increasing since 2007, as a result of which the national reception mechanism had gradually become saturated. The circumstances in question thus had to be seen in the context of a progressive increase rather than one of a humanitarian emergency triggered by a major migratory crisis that could be characterised as extraordinary, entailing major objective organisational, logistical and structural difficulties (see Khlaifia v. Italy ). The authorities had made efforts to provide additional accommodation and to speed up the processing of asylum applications. However, the asylum-seekers’ situation had nevertheless been capable of engaging Article 3 of the Convention.

(a) As regards N.H., K.T. and A.J. – The authorities had failed in their duties towards the applicants under domestic law. They therefore had to be held responsible for the conditions in which the applicants had been living for several months: sleeping rough, without access to sanitary facilities, having no means of subsistence and constantly in fear of being attacked or robbed. The applicants had thus been victims of degrading treatment, showing disrespect for their dignity. This situation must have aroused in them feelings of fear, anxiety and inferiority, likely to cause despair. Such living conditions, combined with the lack of an appropriate response from the authorities, whom they had alerted on many occasions as to their inability to enjoy their rights in practice and thus to meet their basic needs, and the fact that the domestic courts had systematically objected that the competent bodies had limited resources for them in the light of their status as single young men, in good health and without dependants, had exceeded the threshold of severity for the purposes of Article 3 of the Convention.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

(b) As regards the applicant S.G. – This applicant had obtained an acknowledgment of his asylum application one month after his first appointment at the Prefecture and– although he had in fact been living in a tent – he had received the ATA two months after that first appointment. As difficult as this period must have been for him, he had from then on been provided with adequate means of subsistence.

Conclusion : no violation (unanimously).

Article 41: N.H. was awarded EUR 2,396.80 in respect of pecuniary damage; N.H. and K.T. EUR 10,000 each, and A.J. EUR 12,000, for non-pecuniary damage.

(See M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece [GC], 30696/09, 21 January 2011, Information note 137 , and Khlaifia and Others v. Italy [GC], 16483/12, 15 December 2016, Information note 202 )

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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