Published on 19 September 2022

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 25782/19 Sevdija SALIM and Others against North Macedonia lodged on 7 May 2019 communicated on 29 August 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns an alleged discriminatory practice of issuing orders banning Roma people who were deported to North Macedonia to use IDs to leave the respondent State (“ID travel ban order”). After the applicants (two married couples, all Roma) had been deported (2014) to the respondent State, the Ministry of Interior (“the MOI”) seized their passports and issued ID travel ban orders. The latter measure was not subject to a prior court request, as required by law. In civil proceedings that the applicants instituted under the Act Against Discrimination they claimed that the ID travel ban orders had targeted Roma and amounted to racial discrimination. In support they relied, inter alia , on several national and international reports, which noted that at the time Roma were disproportionally affected by various measures preventing nationals to leave the respondent State. In reply the MOI argued that according to an internal decision of 2011 a travel ban was an automatic measure following one’s deportation to North Macedonia. It further submitted statistics showing that 57% of deported people at the time were Roma, ID travel ban orders concerning two non-Roma nationals (without specifying whether they were issued following deportation), and passports seizure orders regarding several non-Roma deported people (no information was given if those people were subject to an ID travel ban order). Following a remittal, courts at two levels of jurisdiction dismissed the claim finding that ID travel ban orders had been issued also in respect of non-Roma people. Subsequently, the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicants’ constitutional complaint. On the above evidence and oral statements the MOI representatives gave at a public hearing held before it, the court found that the MOI had not acted in a discriminatory manner and that it had issued ID travel ban orders also in respect of non-Roma deported people. The court declared itself not competent to decide whether the ID travel ban orders in respect of the applicants met the statutory requirements.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Have the applicants suffered discrimination in the enjoyment of their right to leave their country on the grounds of their Roma origin, contrary to Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 and/or Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 2 § 2 of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention?

Application no. 25782/19

No.

Applicant’s Name

Year of birth/registration

Nationality

Place of residence

1.Sevdija SALIM

1982Macedonian/ citizen of the Republic of North Macedonia

Skopje

2.Ajten BEKIR

1987

3.Suvat BEKIR

1979

4.Senad SALIM

1980