THIRD SECTION

Application no . 753/13 G.A.N. and Others against the Netherlands lodged on 7 January 2013

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant s, Mr G.A.N. , Mrs M.C. and their daughter , are citizen s of Afghanistan . They were born in 1992 , 1995 and 2010 respectively and they are currently stay ing in the Netherlands . They are repres ented before the Court by Mr H.J. Janse , a lawyer practising in Groningen .

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant s , may be summarised as follows.

On 14 November 2011 the applicants lodged applications for asylum in the Netherlands .

By decisions of 22 November 2011 the Minister for Immigration and Asylum ( Minister voor Immigratie en Asiel ; “the Minister”) rejected their asylum applications. Although their account was found credible, it was considered that the applicants had failed to establish a real and personal risk of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention. T he Minister found that the applicants had failed to demonstrate that their family in Afghanistan were aware of their elopement and that they would be subjected to honour-related crimes. Also, the applicants had failed to demonstrate that their family would be able to learn of their return. In the view of the Minister, they could find refuge in a different part of the country, without letting their family know that they had returned. Lastly, the general security situation in Afghanistan was not such that it would fall within the scope of Article 15c of the EU Qualification Directive (subsidiary protection).

The applicants appealed this decision. They claimed that upon return to Afghanistan , they had a real and personal risk of falling victim to honour-related crimes as both their families were searching for them. They further claimed that they did not have any relocation alternative as they did not have a social network in Afghanistan . They referred to country of origin information which showed that people who returned to Afghanistan needed to have a social network in order to return safely. As they did not have such a network there was no possibility that they could return safely to Afghanistan .

On 3 January 2012 the Regional Court ( rechtbank ) of The Hague, sitting in Zwolle, accepted the appeal, quashed the decisions of 22 November 2011 and ordered the Minister to take a fresh decision. The court held that the chances of the second applicant ’ s family finding the applicants could not be ignored. These chances would only increase with the passing of time. The court further took into account that it was possible that the applicants would be recognised by someone and that this person , inadvertently, mentioned their return to the family. Subsequently, the court concluded that those two chances taken together with the fact that no protection against their family would be available – as had been acknowledged by the Minister – meant that the applicants had a real and personal risk of a violation of Article 3 of the Convention upon return to Afghanistan .

The Minister appealed this decision. On 10 July 2012 the Administrative Jurisdiction Division of the Council of State ( Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State ; “the Division”) accepted this appeal, quashed the judgment of 3 January 2012 and dismissed the applicants ’ initial appeals. The Division accepted that the applicants were at risk of falling victim to honour-related crimes as they had married each other against the wishes of the second applicant ’ s family. However, the Division went on to find that the applicants could relocate to a different part of Afghanistan . In this respect it considered that Afghanistan had a population of 30 million people and that the applicants would be able to hide somewhere in the country. The chances of their family finding them were considered negligible.

On 11 January 2013, the Court, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, indicated to the Netherlands Government that the applicants should not be expelled to Afghanistan pending the proceedings before the Court.

COMPLAINT

The applicant s complain under Article 3 of the Convention that there are substantial grounds for believing that t he y will be subjected to treatment prohibited by that provision if t he y were expelled to Afghanistan .