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Paposhvili v. Belgium, [2016] ECHR 1113 (13 December 2016)

Date of judgement: 13 December 2016

Court: European Court of Human Rights

Citation(s):  Paposhvili v. Belgium – 41738/10 (Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction) : Court (Grand Chamber)) [2016] ECHR 1113 (13 December 2016)

Short summary 

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) memorably reshaped its Art. 3 case law on the expulsion of seriously ill migrants in leaving behind the restrictive application of the high Art. 3 threshold set in N v. the United Kingdom Appl. No. 26565/05, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 27 May 2008, and pushed for a more rigorous assessment of the risk of ill-treatment. 

Summary by: Claudia Broadhead

Link to original judgement 

Click here to open the case in PDF format

Categorisations

Private v State, International Law, Refugee Law, Civil Rights Law, Migration and Health, Right to Family, Issues in Litigation, Evidence Admissibility


Weight of decision 

The decision handed down by the ECtHR bears significant weight upon the interpretation of Art. 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 

Key facts

The applicant, a Georgian national facing removal from Belgium due to criminal activity, suffered from leukaemia and recurrent tuberculosis which had caused lung disease. The applicant claimed that, if removed to Georgia, he would be unable to access adequate medical treatment and was therefore at risk of ill-treatment in violation of his rights under Art. 3 ECHR (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), and accelerated death in breach of his right to life under Art. 2 ECHR. The applicant also argued that his removal to Georgia in conjunction with a ten-year ban on re-entering Belgium would result in separation with his family, who had leave to remain in Belgium. 

Previous instances 

The Fifth Section Chamber judgment of April 2014 held that the applicant’s removal would not encroach upon his Art. 3 or Art. 8 (right to private and family life) rights under the ECHR. The case was later referred to the Grand Chamber, and the applicant died pending these proceedings. The applicant’s family continued proceedings before the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR. 

The ECtHR found that there would have been a violation of Art. 3 and 8 ECHR if the Applicant had been removed to Georgia without the Belgian authorities having assessed the risk that he faced from removal in light of the information concerning the state of his health and the existence (or lack thereof) of appropriate treatment in Georgia.

Summary of holding

The ECtHR held that the severity of ill-treatment under Art. 3 must attain a minimum level and that the suffering flowing from a natural occurring illness may be (or risks being) exacerbated by treatment, whether flowing from conditions of detention, expulsion, or other measures for which the authorities could be held responsible. 

The ECtHR highlighted that since its decision in N v. the United Kingdom, an extremely high threshold (exceptional circumstances) had been set when applying Art. 3 to seriously ill persons. Indeed, only those close to death appear to be covered by the provision. In this case, the ECtHR determined that Art. 3 is triggered where “the absence of appropriate treatment in the receiving country or the lack of access to such treatment, exposes the individual to a serious, rapid and irreversible decline in his or her state of health resulting in intense suffering or to a significant reduction in life expectancy” (para. 183). The ECtHR recognised here that the application of Art. 3 only to persons close to death had deprived those whose condition was less critical, but who were still seriously ill, from “the benefit of that provision” (para. 181).

In ensuring that Art. 3 is respected, the ECtHR went on to highlight that appropriate procedures need to be put in place to allow the individual to adduce evidence of the potential risk upon return to the country of origin, and for the State to examine the foreseeable consequences of return with regard to both the general situation and the individual’s circumstances. Thus, the applicant is not obliged to present clear proof that they would be exposed to proscribed treatment. 

The authorities should assess whether the care generally available in the receiving State is sufficient and appropriate in practice for the treatment of the applicant’s illness. So, states must assess the impact of removal upon the individual by comparing their health prior to removal and how it would evolve after transfer. 

Factors to be considered in this assessment include whether the care is generally available in the receiving State, whether it is sufficient and appropriate in practice for the applicant’s treatment, and whether the individual will actually have access to this care and these facilities in the receiving State. This includes considerations relating to costs, existence of social networks and distances to access the relevant treatment.


Potential takeaways for future climate migration litigation

  • Threshold for breach of Art.3 ECHR. The ECtHR established in N v. United Kingdom that removing a non-national suffering from a serious illness to “a country where the facilities for the treatment of that illness are inferior to those available in the Contracting State may raise an issue under Article 3, but only in a very exceptional case” (para. 42). The case set a very high threshold to finding breaches of Art. 3 where the issue was attributable to the State’s lack of resources to deal with a naturally occurring phenomenon. 
    • By contrast, in the case at hand, the ECtHR left behind the restrictive application and pushed for a more rigorous assessment of the risk of ill-treatment. 
  • Practice access to treatment. The judgement does not simply discuss whether adequate treatment is generally available in the receiving State but, crucially, whether the treatment would be accessible to the person concerned, addressing practical as opposed to theoretical access to sufficient care.

N v. United Kingdom, Application No. 26565/05

Date of judgement: 27 May 2008

Court: European Court of Human Rights

Citation(s): N v. The United Kingdom, Appl. No. 26565/05, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 27 May 2008

Short summary 

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) formerly established a very high threshold for the protection of asylum seekers with severe health conditions under Art. 3 of the European Convention on Human RIghts in the case of an Ugandan woman suffering from HIV. 

Summary by: Claudia Broadhead

Link to original judgement 

Click here to open the case in PDF format


Weight of decision 

The decision handed down by the ECtHR bears significant weight upon the interpretation of Art. 3 right to prevent of inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). See the Paposhvili decision for further elaboration upon this notion. 

Key facts

The applicant was an Ugandan woman who entered the UK in 1998 under a false identity. Within days, she applied for asylum, claiming that she had been raped by the National Resistance Movement in Uganda because she was associated with the Lord’s Resistance Army. She was diagnosed as being HIV positive and developed Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS defining illness. Medication was only available in Uganda at considerable expense and not easily accessible from her hometown. The applicant claimed that her removal to Uganda would violate her Art. 3 ECHR right (prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment).

The Secretary of State refused the asylum claim on 28 March 2001 on grounds of credibility, and also because it was not accepted that the Ugandan authorities were interested in the applicant. The applicant’s Art. 3 claim was also rejected, with the Secretary of State noting that treatment of AIDS in Uganda was comparable to any other African country, and all the major anti-viral drugs were available in Uganda at highly subsidized prices. 

Summary of holding

The ECtHR first stated that AIDS drugs available under the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. could also be obtained locally in Uganda, and most were also available at a reduced price through UN-funded projects. The applicant’s return would not, therefore, be to a complete absence of medical treatment, and so would not subject her to acute physical and mental suffering. 

The ECtHR found that the decision to remove someone who is suffering from a serious mental or physical illness to a country where the facilities for the treatment of that illness are inferior to those available in the contracting state may raise an issue under Art. 3, but only in a very exceptional case where the humanitarian grounds against the removal are compelling (para. 42). 

In particular, the court found that for ill-treatment to fall within the scope of Art. 3, it must attain a minimum level of severity that is relative and dependent on all the circumstances of the case, including the duration of treatment, its physical and mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age, and state of health of the victim.

Further, the ECtHR stated that although advances in medical science – together with social and economic differences between countries – entail that the level of treatment available in the contracting state and the country of origin may vary considerably, Art. 3 does not place an obligation upon the contracting state to alleviate such disparities through the provision of free and unlimited health care to all people without a right to stay within its jurisdiction. 

If humanitarian conditions are solely or predominantly attributable to poverty or to the state’s lack of resources to deal with a naturally occurring phenomenon (in this case HIV illness), the higher threshold of exceptional circumstances is applied and therefore deportation is more likely. 


Potential takeaways for future climate migration litigation

  • Thresholds. In the absence of cases specifically related to climate migration, non-refoulement cases with a medical basis for argument are generally a realistic indicator of thresholds, the interpretation of the articles, and requirements under which protection can be expected from courts. 
  • This case set an absurdly high threshold, and thus should be seen as an unfavourable case for climate migration. For further development (and reduction) of the principles in the case, see the case of Paposhvili v. Belgium.