An asylum seeker may not be sent back to the first EU member state he or she landed in from outside the EU if they risk being subjected to inhuman treatment there, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.
This means five asylum seekers in Ireland who landed first in Greece from outside the EU cannot be sent back there.
Under the “Dublin II” Regulation the state in which the asylum seeker first arrived was considered responsible for dealing with their asylum application. In practice this meant Ireland could send asylum seekers back to countries along the EU’s eastern and southern borders which were most commonly the first in which they arrived.
Earlier this year the ECJ ruled Belgium was wrong to send an asylum seeker back to Greece where he had already suffered mistreatment in the asylum process, as Greece could not guarantee his human rights would not be infringed.
Following this, the court was asked by Ireland and the UK to rule on two cases where asylum seekers had arrived from Greece and resisted being sent back there on the basis that the procedures and conditions for asylum seekers are inadequate.