TrustHLT/LaCour huggingface dataset:
GR1 (Government): The chamber chose to assess the perceived deficiencies of the asylum proceedings in the context of Article 3 alone, but that assessment was based on a set of erroneously established facts, as it was explained in detail in the government's written pleadings.
GR1 (Government): In this respect, I would like to add only a few remarks in light of the applicants' observations.
GR1 (Government): The applicants complain about the inadequacy of the information they were given about the asylum proceedings.
GR1 (Government): The government considered that apart from the generally required information, which the applicants were always given at the adequate time by the asylum authority, such as information about issues that needed clarification in the proceedings, like what happened to them in Serbia, or about available remedies, the applicants could have obtained any further information or clarification in the framework of free legal assistance provided by the state, which they did not avail themselves of, but chose the assistance offered by the lawyers commissioned by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the same organization which provides for the representation in the present proceedings.
GR1 (Government): Therefore, if the applicants had insufficient information about the asylum proceedings, it was not attributable to the Hungarian government, but to the counsel of their own choice.
GR1 (Government): As regards the language and quality of interpretation, the government point out that contrary to the applicants' claims, in the present proceedings they were given interpretation in a language they claimed to understand and by interpreters whom they claimed to properly understand.
GR1 (Government): Neither the applicants nor the legal representative complained before the domestic authorities of the quality or language of the interpretation, not even on a direct question from the court.
GR1 (Government): If the interpretation was indeed inadequate, we cannot but conclude that the applicants and the representatives misled the Hungarian authorities in order only to be able to complain before the court.
GR1 (Government): As regards the short procedural deadlines complained of by the applicants, as well as by the UNHCR, the government submit that those deadlines are the guarantees for keeping the duration of asylum applicants' legal uncertainty as regards their right to enter to the minimum possible.
GR1 (Government): The deadlines in the case did not affect the effectiveness of the work of the applicants' legal representatives, as it is proven even by the fact that their first request for judicial review was successful.
GR1 (Government): The procedural deadlines set by Hungarian law are adequate to the nature and complexity of the legal issues to be clarified in the course of the proceedings.
GR1 (Government): The applicants did not need more than three days for giving account of their personal experience concerning the Serbian asylum system.
GR1 (Government): As regards the submissions of the UNHCR, the government note that its analysis is inaccurate, incomplete, and biased.
GR1 (Government): As an example, in paragraph 2.2.6
GR1 (Government): of its third-party submissions, the UNHCR alleges that as a result of the difficulties hindering access to judicial review, in 2015 only nine rejected asylum seekers registered requests for judicial review in the transit zone.
GR1 (Government): And later, withdrawals left only two asylum seekers to pursue judicial review proceedings.
GR1 (Government): However, withdrawal of a request cannot be reasonable, seen as a proof of being hindered in submitting that request.
GR1 (Government): Moreover, the UNHCR submissions contradict its own findings, stated in paragraph 27 of the same report, cited as a source of information, that between the 15th of September, 2015, and the 31st of March, 2016, 114 of 118 rejected asylum applicants submitted requests for judicial review.
GR1 (Government): The government submit that even if the number of requests for judicial review in the transit zones were to be regarded as low, it was not due to difficulties in filing such requests, but to the fact that about 90% of all asylum seekers in the relevant period qualified as persons with special needs who did not fall under the rules of border proceedings applied in the applicant's case.
GR1 (Government): The government must also point out that the concerns of the UNHCR, an organization with a mandate to improve the protection of refugees, seem to be misplaced with economic migrants abusing the asylum and welfare systems in Europe.
GR1 (Government): As an organization concerned about the improvement of the effectiveness of the asylum proceedings, the UNHCR should be quite satisfied with the measures introduced by the Hungarian government in 2015 and 2017, discouraging and later curtailing abuses by economic migrants and asylum shoppers, which have resulted in an ever-increasing rate of recognition of refugee status and granting of international protection in Hungary to those who are in real need of it, as it was shown in the government's written pleadings.
GR1 (Government): when you deliver your decision in the present case, you must also bear in mind that in accordance with Article 46 of the convention, your judgment will be binding only in respect of Hungary.
GR1 (Government): Should you succeed in forcing Hungary to grant a universal right to freedom of movement across the borders, demolish the border fence and the transit zones at the border, you may soon find the border fence rebuilt on the borders of Austria and Hungary, right where the iron curtain dividing Europe used to be with the new so-called Kali jungle and the western borders of Hungary.
GR1 (Government): Then, by not following the court's wisdom in the Bankovic case, in an effort to protect human rights universally, you may cause the destruction of the rights of the people living in the legal space of the convention, including the right to free movement across borders, as it is recognized today.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much Mr. Tallódi and I thank both parties for their submissions and now
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): I invite my colleagues, the judges of the Grand Chamber who wish to do so, to put their questions to the parties.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): I do have one question to the applicants and three questions to the government.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): The first question to the applicant, the applicants are from Bangladesh and requested asylum in Hungary.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): The basis for their request must be, I assume, the risk of ill treatment in their country of origin, which is Bangladesh.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): In their observations before the court, the applicants have provided the court with some information about their personal situation and the alleged risk of ill treatment in Bangladesh.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): But my question is, did the applicants also explain to the Hungarian authorities the basis for their fear of ill treatment?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): If so, when and to whom did they do so?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): More specifically, were they given a chance to do so by the Hungarian authorities?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): And were they also questioned by the authorities on this issue?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): When I listened to the representative's intervention addressing the question of arguable claim and fear, if I did not misunderstand it, it was only with reference to Serbia and Greece, but not in relation to Bangladesh.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): My first question to the government concerns Serbia as a safe third country.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): The applicants did submit a request for asylum in Hungary, but the Hungarian authorities relied on Serbia as being a safe third country.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): Is it correct to conclude that Hungarian authorities never assessed the applicants' request for asylum under merits, that is, the risk of ill treatment in a country of origin, but limited its assessment to Serbia being a safe third country?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): If so, why was their assessment limited to Serbia?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): Was it the result of a legal prescription or a standard practice?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): Furthermore, were the applicants asked by the Hungarian authorities about their fear of ill treatment in Bangladesh, and if so, when and by whom?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): My second question to the government concerns the possible consequences in case the applicants had left the transit border area.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): One of the issues of dispute between the parties is the question of the possible consequences in case the applicants had decided to leave the border transit zone before having received a final decision on the request for asylum.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): According to section 62, paragraph 2, subparagraph D of the Asylum Act, the authorities may discontinue the proceedings of a request in case the asylum seekers leaves his place of accommodation for more than 48 hours.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): Furthermore, according to section 66, paragraph 6 of the same act, an asylum seeker may, within the time limit of nine months, request the continuation of a request for asylum.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): Therefore, my question, is it correctly understood that if the applicants had left the border transit zone, the processing of the request would have been discontinued?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): And are there any examples in practice where the authorities have decided, on the basis of a request from an asylum seeker, to continue the processing of a request that has been discontinued?
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): My last question to the government is the following.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): The Hungarian authorities relied on Serbia as being a safe third country.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): According to the government, the authorities did so on the basis of a general assessment of the situation in Serbia, as well as an assessment of the applicant's individual situation.
Jon Fridrik Kjølbro (Judge): My question is, are there any examples in practice, in particular during the relevant period in 2015, where Hungarian authorities exceptionally have reached the conclusion that Serbia was not a safe third country, or was Serbia, in all cases, regarded as being a safe third country?
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Now Judge Bianku, please.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): My question follows the last question of my learned colleague, Judge Kjølbro.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): And it is directed to the government, but the applicants can, of course, provide information and opinion.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): The question is, section 2 of the government's decree 191, 2015 provides for a list of countries to be considered safe for purposes of removals of asylum seekers.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): Then the question is, how safe is this consideration as safe countries, especially if we consider that the Balkan route, including Serbia, was facing very high migrant fluxes in the summer, autumn 2015?
Ledi Bianku (Judge): I invite you to consider as well paragraph 48 of the EU procedures directive as to the update of this information.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): The second question, this court in Sufi and Elmi has defined the sources of information for the purpose of qualifying a safe country of destination, being third or original country.
Ledi Bianku (Judge): In conducting their assessment, should national authorities and eventually this court rely in other sources of information on the country of destination situation, such as, for example, credible media reports?
Nebojša Vučinić (Judge): I have short questions, better to say comments.
Nebojša Vučinić (Judge): I would like to hear comments of both parties concerning the concept of so-called inherent limitations on personal freedom and liberties introduced by the government, Hungarian government in their written submissions and in the presentation of this morning.
Nebojša Vučinić (Judge): More precisely, in the course of the legal qualification of the measures on which applicants had been subjected in the transit zone, government is invoking the concept of inherent limitations of personal liberty.
Nebojša Vučinić (Judge): Can you say a little bit more precisely what does it mean, specifically in the context of the court's jurisprudence, court's case law regarding the Article 5 of the convention?
Robert Spano (Judge): Just, I have one follow-up question, which is prompted by the pleadings of the government this morning and follows one of the questions posed by my colleague, Judge Kjølbro .
Robert Spano (Judge): There is a crucial element in this case, and that is the implementation by the Hungarian authorities of the safe third country concept.
Robert Spano (Judge): In 2009, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe issued guidelines on human rights protection in the context of accelerated asylum procedures, where the safe third country concept is developed.
Robert Spano (Judge): One of the criteria mentioned for the appropriate application of that concept is that the third country, in our case, Serbia, will admit the asylum seeker.
Robert Spano (Judge): Now, this seems to be, and now here comes my question, and I would like your comment on this.
Robert Spano (Judge): In section 51A of the Asylum Act of 2007, which was in force at the time of the proceedings, it stated as follows.
Robert Spano (Judge): If the safe country of origin, which we're not dealing with here, or the safe third country refuses to admit or to take back the applicant, the asylum authority shall withdraw its decision and shall continue the procedure.
Robert Spano (Judge): Now, my question is, Mr. Tallódi, you said this morning that the readmission procedure had not been triggered.
Robert Spano (Judge): So may I ask, on what basis were the Hungarian authorities in conformity with 51A of your Asylum Act?
Robert Spano (Judge): To what extent were there assurances made that Serbia would, in fact, readmit the applicants on the facts of this case, and therefore, to what extent, if your answer is that no such readmission was made explicitly by the Serbian government, how that would conform with the implementation of this safe third country concept.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much. If there are no more questions the court will now withdraw for 20 minutes. Following which, the parties will be able to submit brief observations in reply to each other's submissions and reply to questions from the judges. The hearing is suspended.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): And I call Mrs. Pohárnok.
AP1 (Applicant): So now, first, we will answer the court's questions.
AP1 (Applicant): And I will answer the first question of Judge Kjorbros.
AP1 (Applicant): And then I give the floor to my colleague.
AP1 (Applicant): So Judge Kjorbros, if we understood well, asks whether the applicants had the chance to explain the basis for their asylum claim.
AP1 (Applicant): And our answer is, we respectfully submit that the procedure, which was done over and done with in a couple of hours' time on September 15 of September, after the applicants entered the transit zone, exclusively focused was a border transit zone procedure.
AP1 (Applicant): By its nature and under Hungarian law, this procedure was an inadmissibility procedure within the asylum procedure, which means that it clearly exclusively focused on the issue of the safe third country.
AP1 (Applicant): Therefore, as it can be seen from the case files of the Hungarian authorities, if you see the minutes of the case files, it's clear that the questions were centered around this issue.
AP1 (Applicant): The asylum office informed the applicants during the interview that the Hungarian authorities consider Serbia as a safe third country, and this procedure is about this issue.
AP1 (Applicant): So anything that was said, or what is in the minutes about the possible reasons for fleeing Bangladesh is said.
AP1 (Applicant): If anything was said, it was by incident.
AP1 (Applicant): There was no examination of the merits.
AP1 (Applicant): It was not the Hungarian authorities' obligation, and they did not do this in the asylum interview, which was in the asylum procedure, in the entire asylum procedure.
AP1 (Applicant): And the applicants did not have any legal assistance or information before their first asylum procedure was concluded.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. President, members of the court, I will now try to answer the remaining questions
AP2 (Applicant): and then conclude our submission today.
AP2 (Applicant): First I will answer to Judge Bianco's question regarding the application of governmental decree on safe third country, despite the media knowledge of influx of migrants coming through the Balkan states at the material time.
AP2 (Applicant): We would like to submit that as this court found in MSS case, it is incumbent to inform itself as to the realistic of the situation and not just rely on the fiction that the country is safe.
AP2 (Applicant): The Belgian authorities could not merely assume that the applicant would be treated in conformity with the convention standards, but to verify how the state would act in practice.
AP2 (Applicant): This was in paragraph 359 of MSS case.
AP2 (Applicant): Regarding the question of Judge Vucinic, what is the meaning of the inherent limitation of personal liberty, we believe that definition of this inherent limitation is for the government to answer, but we would like to submit that article 5 spells out very precisely the situations in which the deprivation of liberty is permitted and procedural safeguards are complying it.
AP2 (Applicant): We would like to stress that we do not claim that Mr. Islias and Mr. Ahmed had an unconditional
AP2 (Applicant): right to enter the remaining territory of Hungary, but we do believe that while they were kept waiting there, they had rights to have all procedural standards that are guaranteed by that convention in regard to their deprivation of liberty in place.
AP2 (Applicant): Finally I would like to have a remark on Judge Spano's question.
AP2 (Applicant): We believe that Judge Spano in his question exposed one of the key issues in the present case, which is that under Hungarian law it was the Hungarian authorities' obligation to make sure that the Serbian authorities would readmit the applicants and process their asylum claim, as it is provided for in paragraph 836 of the Council of Europe guidelines to which Judge Spano referred.
AP2 (Applicant): It is clear from the files of the case that this was not the case.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. President, members of the Court, I would like to conclude with the following.
AP2 (Applicant): This is the case about the rule of law, a concept which runs like a golden thread through the whole convention and is articulated in its preamble.
AP2 (Applicant): The rule of law requires to have in place the appropriate laws to safeguard convention rights from arbitrariness and to observe these laws in practice.
AP2 (Applicant): Those essential procedural safeguards should ensure that no one is arbitrarily deprived of his or her liberty, that mechanisms exist about both in law and in practice for challenging detention and conditions of detention, and that no one is expelled to face a risk of prohibited ill-treatment directly or by chain refoulement without rigorous scrutiny being given to their claims.
AP2 (Applicant): It is the applicant's case that the Hungarian government failed to have in place and comply with essential procedural safeguards required by the convention.
AP2 (Applicant): What the Hungarian and some of the intervening governments in essence argue is that you should sidestep the convention and your consistent case law regarding Article 3 and Article 5 in asylum cases to be able to control their borders and to ensure security of their people under heightened migration pressure.
AP2 (Applicant): They contend that the Court's case law has generated the systematic abuse of asylum and has facilitated the blooming business of human smugglers.
AP2 (Applicant): This position is fundamentally incorrect.
AP2 (Applicant): No doubt that states are obliged to guarantee national security and to control their borders, which is of utmost importance as confirmed by the Grand Chamber in Sadi, Hirsi, and Klaifia.
AP2 (Applicant): It is also clear that the convention does not guarantee anyone the right to refugee status nor the right to enter unauthorized.
AP2 (Applicant): Mr. President, members of the Court, please be confident that contracting states are perfectly
AP2 (Applicant): capable to lawfully reject, detain, and remove those who have no legitimate claim for asylum or residence, even in times of mass influx, without human rights violations.
AP2 (Applicant): Their security concerns can and should be brought in line with existing human rights obligations, as confirmed most recently by the Grand Chamber in Klaifia.
AP2 (Applicant): Subjecting human beings to arbitrary detention, to summary procedures, or to inhuman treatment does not make Europe a safer place.
AP2 (Applicant): Today we request you to uphold these standards in the case of Mr. Ilias and Mr. Ahmed, who
AP2 (Applicant): were seeking international protection in Hungary.
Guido Raimondi (JudgeP): Thank you very much, madam. Now I call Mr. Tallódi, please.
GR1 (Government): Before I react to the concrete questions, I would like to make some remarks concerning the allegations by the applicants, or the representative of the applicants, concerning the language or the quality of the language or the translation.
GR1 (Government): Both the applicants claim to speak and understand Urdu and never requested a Bengali interpreter.
GR1 (Government): In respect, it must be noted that neither the Convention nor EU law provides for the right to interpretation in the Asylum Seekers' Modern Tongue.
GR1 (Government): It is sufficient if interpretation is provided in a language that the applicant understands.
GR1 (Government): The story of the applicants lives presented before this Court makes it more likely that they had a sufficient understanding of Urdu and of the other languages they had claimed before the Hungarian authorities to understand that they spoke only Bengali, as they claim in the latest submissions.
GR1 (Government): In this respect, I draw your attention to annex number 2 attached to the applicant's written observations submitted on the 18th of December, 2017.
GR1 (Government): The counsel asking the applicant in English if she can call him with an Urdu interpreter – moreover, the first applicant's statement signed on the 12th of December, 2017, also says that it was translated to him in Urdu.
GR1 (Government): The power of attorneys signed by the applicants in the Hungarian proceedings also indicated Urdu as a language of communication.
GR1 (Government): Moreover, the video interviews deposited by the applicants with this Court were also conducted in Urdu.
GR1 (Government): And as a comment on the applicant's opening argument citing a Syrian refugee, let me inform you that in the period between 15th of September, 2015, and 27th of March, 2017, 11,038 persons submitted asylum applications in either of the border transit zones in Hungary.
GR1 (Government): More than 90 percent of them – more than 9,000 asylum applicants were found to fall in the category of persons with need for special treatment, who didn't fall under the rules of border proceedings and were granted leave to enter Hungary immediately.
GR1 (Government): Most of them left Hungary towards Austria and their earliest convenience without awaiting a decision on the merits of their asylum application.
GR1 (Government): And Hungary cannot reasonably be expected to prevent secondary movement of asylum seekers towards Western Europe without the measures introduced in 2017, bearing in mind that the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees obliges the states to provide refugees not less favorable treatment than to their nationals.
GR1 (Government): A country where nationals enjoy higher standards of welfare services and a higher standard of living will always be more attractive to asylum seekers if they are given a choice than countries with a lower standard of living.