FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF S.B. v. NORTH MACEDONIA
(Application no. 64163/19)
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
30 November 2023
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of S.B. v. North Macedonia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström, President,
 Lado Chanturia,
 Mattias Guyomar, judges,
and Sophie Piquet, Acting Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 64163/19) against the Republic of North Macedonia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 6 December 2019 by a Serbian national, S.B., who was born in 1981 and lives in Skopje (“the applicant”), and who was represented by Mr D. Gjorchevski, a lawyer practising in Skopje;
the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Government of North Macedonia (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms D. Djonova, and to declare the remainder of the application inadmissible;
the decision not to have the applicant’s name disclosed;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 9 November 2023,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the alleged inability of the applicant to challenge evidence relied on by the domestic authorities in proceedings for her expulsion. 2. The applicant, a Roma who fled Kosovo[1] in 1999, was granted refugee status in the respondent State and appears to have been living there ever since, currently with her partner and her five children. On 9 March 2017 the Ministry of the Interior (“the Ministry”) issued a decision terminating the applicant’s refugee status on grounds of national security and ordering her to leave the country. The decision was preceded by an interview at which the applicant, who had been legally represented, had confirmed her family situation and her intention to marry her partner. She had also stated that she had not had any problems with the police authorities. Whether the applicant represented a security risk was not discussed at the interview. 3. The applicant, through her lawyer, challenged the decision terminating her refugee status, arguing that there was no evidence that her presence in the respondent State represented a threat to national security. On 3 January 2018 the Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal and upheld the decision of the Ministry, noting, inter alia, that the Ministry had knowledge of information relevant to section 6(2) of the Asylum and Subsidiary Protection Act, which provided that an alien could not be granted asylum or subsidiary protection if he or she represented a threat to national security. The court also found that the statements made at the interview were insufficient for it to arrive at any other conclusion given the findings by the Ministry. In a final judgment of 7 June 2019, the Higher Administrative Court upheld the Ministry’s decision and found that, in any event, the legal prerequisites for granting the right to asylum had ceased to exist and it was open to the applicant to regularise her stay on different grounds. The court referred to information obtained by the Ministry about the human rights situation in Kosovo. In response to the applicant’s argument that she had not been able to challenge the evidence of her being a threat to the national security, it added that although such evidence had been assessed by the court, it had not been decisive for the judgment in her case. 4. The applicant complained under Articles 3, 13 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention that she would be at risk of ill-treatment if expelled, that there was no effective review of her case domestically, and that she had not been given an opportunity to have knowledge of and to comment on the evidence in question.

Outcome for Article P7-1: violation