Category Archives: Judicial

by | 07 Jun 2010 · 06:18

Spanish Court Rules that Schengen Treaty Prevents Asylees From Leaving Ceuta and Melilla

As noted on Diario de la Inmigración, a Spanish Court in Ceuta (el Juzgado Contencioso Administrativo número 2 de Ceuta) has ruled that persons granted asylum or subsidiary protection may not leave Ceuta for the Spanish peninsula.  The court agreed with the position of the Spanish government and ruled that the two autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla are not part of the Schengen area and that proper documentation is therefore required to enter the Schengen area from the cities.  The court concluded that the “yellow card” (“tarjeta amarilla”) issued to persons granted asylum or subsidiary protection is insufficient documentation to enter the Schengen area.

The UNHCR and CEAR have previously criticised the Spanish’s government new policy of restricting the free movement of persons in Ceuta and Melilla who have been granted asylum or subsidiary protection.  UNHCR believes that the restrictions on free movement violate article 5 of Spain’s 2009 asylum law (la ley 12/2009, de 30 de octubre).

Click here, here, and here for articles (all ES).

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by | 12 May 2010 · 15:53

LIBE Votes to Refer Frontex Sea Border Rules to JURI

At its meeting on 10 May, the LIBE committee voted to send a request to the JURI committee regarding the Council Decision pertaining to the procedures to be applied during Frontex surveillance and interdiction operations at sea.  The request asks the JURI committee to refer the Council Decision to the European Court of Justice on the procedural ground that the Council Decision should not have been dealt with as a comitology measure but instead should be grounded on a legal basis.

I have not yet been able to find a copy of the LIBE committee’s letter to JURI, but a video of the LIBE committee meeting can be found on the EP Multimedia Library here or here.  The vote and the brief discussion occurs at approximately 16:44 in the video.

Click here for an earlier post.

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by | 23 Apr 2010 · 16:02

Italian Prosecutor Brings Charges Against Heads of Immigration Directorate and Guardia di Finanza in Connection with Push-Back Operation to Libya

The Syracuse Prosecutor’s Office (La Procura della Repubblica di Siracusa) has brought criminal charges against Rodolfo Ronconi, the head of the Italian Immigration Directorate and Border Police (la direzione centrale dell’immigrazione e la polizia delle Frontiere) and Vincenzo Carrarini, the head of the Finance Police (Guardia di Finanza) in connection with the forcible return of 75 migrants who were intercepted at sea in international waters by a Guardia di Finanza ship in August 2009 and returned to Libya pursuant to the Italy-Libya migration agreement.

Charges were not brought against individual Guardia di Finanza military personnel who carried out the interception and push-back of the migrants on the grounds that they were acting under orders from superiors and that those orders were not manifestly illegal (per ordini superiori non manifestamente illegittimi).

The charges allege that the two officials were complicit in private violence (concorso in violenza private).  According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the charges are not based on the act of refoulement, but rather are based on the failure to apply Italian law.  After being intercepted, the 75 migrants were brought aboard the Guardia di Finanza ship which then transported them to Libya.  According to the Prosecutor, Italian laws applied once the migrants were taken onto the Guardia di Finanza ship because the ship is the equivalent of Italian territory.  The charges are based on allegations that the migrants were taken to Libya against their will and were denied access to procedures for the protection of refugees and prevented from exercising other rights available to them under domestic law and international law incorporate within domestic law.

At least nine similar interdiction operations were conducted by Italy in 2009 in the Channel of Sicily which resulted in the forcible return of at least 834 migrants to Libya.  The first such interdiction operation in May 2009 is at issue in the case of of Hirsi and others v Italy, Requête no 27765/09 now pending before the European Court of Human Rights.

The other interdiction operations consist of the following:

  • 7 May – About 230 migrants intercepted in three boats in the Strait of Sicily and returned to Libya.
  • 8 May – A boat with about 80 people in difficulty off the coast of Libya was towed to Tripoli.
  • 10 May – A naval patrol returned more than 200 people to Libya who were intercepted in the Channel of Sicily.
  • 19 June – A boat with 76 migrants near Lampedusa, intercepted by a Coast Guard patrol, and the immigrants, including women and children, were then transferred to a Libyan patrol boat and returned to Tripoli.
  • 1 July – 89 migrants (including 9 women and 3 children) located on a raft about 30 miles from Lampedusa were taken on board a Navy ship and transferred to an Agip oil platform off the coast of Libya. From there a Libyan patrol boat took them to Tripoli.
  • 5 July – About 40 migrants rescued near Lampedusa by a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza.  Many of whom were later reported to be in Tripoli.
  • 29 July – A boat with 14 people was rescued by a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza. Passengers were taken to Tripoli.
  • 30 August – A boat with 75 migrants on board (among them 15 women and 3 children) was intercepted south of Capo Passero. Passengers were transferred to a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza and returned to Libya.

Click here (IT) and here (IT) for articles.

Click here for previous post on Hirsi and others v Italy.

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by | 22 Apr 2010 · 15:20

ECtHR Decision in Medvedyev and Others v France

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued its decision in Case of Medvedyev and Others v. France (Application no. 3394/03) on 29 March.  The applicants in the case were crew members on a Cambodian ship intercepted by the French Navy near Cape Verde.  The crew members were brought to France where they were convicted of drug smuggling.  Proceedings were then brought by the crew members before the ECtHR to challenge, among other things, the legality of their detention at sea.

An analysis of the decision by Douglas Guilfoyle, Lecturer in Law at University College London, is posted on EJIL: Talk! – “ECHR Rights at Sea: Medvedyev and others v. France.”

From the Registrar’s Press Release:

“Article 1- The Court had established in its case-law that the responsibility of a State Party to the European Convention on Human Rights could arise in an area outside its national territory when as a consequence of military action it exercised effective control of that area, or in cases involving the activities of its diplomatic or consular agents abroad and on board aircraft and ships registered in, or flying the flag of, the State concerned. France had exercised full and exclusive control over the [ship] and its crew, at least de facto, from the time of its interception, in a continuous and uninterrupted manner. Besides the interception of the [ship] by the French Navy, its rerouting had been ordered by the French authorities, and the [ship’s] crew had remained under the control of the French military throughout the voyage to Brest. Accordingly, the applicants had been effectively within France’s jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 1.

Article 5 § 1 – The applicants had been under the control of the special military forces and deprived of their liberty throughout the voyage, as the ship’s course had been imposed by the French military. The Court therefore considered that their situation after the ship was boarded had amounted to a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of Article 5. The Court was fully aware of the need to combat international drug trafficking and could see why States were so firm in that regard. However, while noting the special nature of the maritime environment, it took the view that this could not justify the creation of an area outside the law. [***] Accordingly, the deprivation of liberty to which the applicants had been subjected between the boarding of their ship and its arrival in Brest had not been “lawful”, for lack of a legal basis of the requisite quality to satisfy the general principle of legal certainty. The Court therefore held by ten votes to seven that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1.

Article 5 § 3 – The Court reiterated that Article 5 was in the first rank of the fundamental rights that protected the physical security of an individual, and that three strands in particular could be identified as running through the Court’s case-law: strict interpretation of the exceptions, the lawfulness of the detention and the promptness or speediness of the judicial controls, which must be automatic and must be carried out by a judicial officer offering the requisite guarantees of independence from the executive and the parties and with the power to order release after reviewing whether or not the detention was justified. While the Court had already noted that terrorist offences presented the authorities with special problems, that did not give them carte blanche to place suspects in police custody, free from effective control. The same applied to the fight against drug trafficking on the high seas. [***] At the time of its interception the [ship] had been off the coast of the Cape Verde islands, and therefore a long way from the French coast. There was nothing to indicate that it had taken any longer than necessary to escort it to France, particularly in view of the weather conditions and the poor state of repair of the vessel, which made it impossible for it to travel any faster. In view of these “wholly exceptional circumstances”, it had been materially impossible to bring the applicants before the investigating judges any sooner, bearing in mind that they had been brought before them eight or nine hours after their arrival, a period which was compatible with the requirements of Article 5 § 3. The Court therefore held by nine votes to eight that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 3.”

Click here for the EJIL: Talk! analysis by Douglas Guilfoyle.

Click here for the Press Release from the Registrar.

Click here (EN) or here (FR) for the Decision of the Grand Chamber.

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by | 18 Mar 2010 · 06:21

UNHCR Files ECtHR Third Party Intervention in Hirsi v. Italy

The UNHCR submitted a third party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Hirsi and others v Italy, Requête no 27765/09, which was filed on 26 May 2009 by 11 Somalis and 13 Eritreans who were among the first group of about 200 migrants interdicted by Italian authorities and summarily returned to Libya pursuant to Italy’s push-back practice.  The case was communicated by the Second Section of the Court on 17 November 2009.

The UNHCR’s intervention “addresses the practice and justification of ‘push-back’ operations by the Italian government, the conditions for reception and seeking asylum in Libya and the extraterritorial scope of the principle of non-refoulement and pursuant legal obligations concerning the rescue and interception of people at sea.”

Excerpts from the intervention:

“[***]  2.2.1  On 6 May 2009, the Italian government, in cooperation with the government of Libya, initiated the so-called “push-back policy” by intercepting people, including those who may be in need of international protection, on the high seas and returning them to Libya. This policy was a departure from the previous practice where Italian naval forces had regularly disembarked such persons in Lampedusa or Sicily. Based on UNHCR’s estimates, in 2008 some 75% of sea arrivals in Italy applied for asylum, and 50% of those who applied received some form of protection after their claims were assessed in the Italian asylum procedure.

2.2.2  According to the Italian authorities, from 6 May to 6 November 2009, a total of nine operations were carried out, returning a total of 834 persons to Libya. The precise modalities of the operations have not been made public and were not otherwise fully disclosed to UNHCR. …

4.1  The extraterritorial scope of the principle of non-refoulement under Article 33 (1) of the 1951 Convention…

4.1.2  The territorial scope of Article 33 (1) is not explicitly defined in the 1951 Convention. The meaning, purpose and intent of the provision demonstrate, in UNHCR’s view, its extraterritorial application, e.g., to situations where a state acts outside its territory or territorial waters. Furthermore, the extraterritorial applicability of human rights obligations contained in various instruments supports this position ….

4.2  The extraterritorial scope of the principle of non-refoulement in human rights law

4.2.1  The complementary and mutually reinforcing nature of international human rights law and international refugee law speak strongly in favour of delineating the same territorial scope for all expressions of the non-refoulement principle, whether developed under refugee or human rights law….

4.3  The principle of non-refoulement in the context of interception and search and rescue operations on the high seas

4.3.1  As stated earlier, the principle of non-refoulement applies whenever a state exercises jurisdiction. Jurisdiction can be based on de jure entitlements and/or de facto control. De jure jurisdiction on the high seas derives from the flag state jurisdiction.  De facto jurisdiction on the high seas is established when a state exercises effective control over persons. Whether there is effective control will depend on the circumstances of the particular case.

4.3.2  Where people are intercepted on the high seas, rescued and put on board a vessel of the intercepting state, the intercepting state is exercising de jure as well as de facto jurisdiction. While de jure jurisdiction applies when the people on board a ship are sailing under the flag of the intercepting state, it is also exercised – relevant to the case of “push-backs” – where the intercepting state has taken the persons on board its vessel, bringing them under its full (effective) control. In UNHCR’s view, as becomes clear from section 2.2 above, the Italian authorities were in full and effective control of the persons throughout the “push-back” operations until the formal hand-over to the Libyan authorities. Article 4 of the Italian Code of Navigation specifies that Italian ships on the high seas are considered as Italian territory.

4.3.3  When jurisdiction on the high seas has been established, the obligations deriving from it in relation to the principle of non-refoulement should be examined. The UNHCR’s Executive Committee has emphasized the fundamental importance of fully respecting this principle for people at sea, underlining that: ‘interception measures should not result in asylum-seekers and refugees being denied access to international protection, or result in those in need of international protection being returned, directly or indirectly, to the frontiers of territories where their life or freedom would be threatened on account of a Convention ground, or where the person has other grounds for protection based on international law.’

4.3.4  In UNHCR’s view, the situation in which a state exercises jurisdiction on the high seas over people on board its vessels requires respect for the principle of non-refoulement. It follows that states are obliged, inter alia, not to hand over those concerned to the control of a state where they would be at risk of persecution (direct refoulement), or from which they would be returned to another country where such a risk exists (indirect refoulement). The state exercising jurisdiction needs to ensure that asylum-seekers are able to access fair and effective asylum procedures in order to determine their needs for international protection….

4.3.6  For interception or rescue operations carried out by EU Member States, UNHCR has clarified that, “… disembarkation of people rescued in the Search and Rescue (SAR) area of an EU Member State should take place either on the territory of the intercepting/rescuing State or on the territory of the State responsible for the SAR. This will ensure that any asylum-seekers among those intercepted or rescued are able to have access to fair and effective asylum procedures. The disembarkation of such persons in Libya does not provide such an assurance”.

5.  Conclusion

5.1  UNHCR considers that the interception of persons on the high seas between Italy and Libya, their transfer from Italian to Libyan custody, and their return to Libya, may be at variance with the principle of non-refoulement and in contradiction to Article 3 of the ECHR. By returning persons to Libya without an adequate assessment of their protection needs, the Italian authorities appear not to have sufficiently taken into account the potential risk of refoulement, including indirect refoulement, and other possible violations of fundamental rights upon return of the affected persons to Libya. The lack of an asylum system in Libya means that there are not sufficient safeguards to ensure that persons in need of international protection will be recognized as such and accorded legal status and associated entitlements that could ensure their rights, including to protection against refoulement, are not violated. The risk of chain refoulement denying international protection, especially to Eritrea, cannot be excluded.”

Click here for the full text of the UNHCR intervention.

Click here for an earlier post on the case.

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by | 17 Mar 2010 · 05:08

COE Human Rights Commissioner Expresses Concern to ECtHR Over Greece’s Treatment of Asylum Seekers

Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg has made public the third party intervention he submitted to the European Court of Human Rights on 10 March.  The intervention was made at the invitation of the ECtHR pursuant to Article 36, paragraph 2 of the ECHR, and is the first such submission of its kind by the Commissioner.

The intervention was submitted in case 26494/09 AHMED ALI v. the Netherlands and Greece, and thirteen related cases.  The cases all deal with the return of asylum seekers from the Netherlands to Greece pursuant to the EC Dublin Regulation.

The Commissioner’s Office notes in a Press Statement that “[w]ith the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 to the [ECHR], the Commissioner will [now] have the right to intervene proprio motu as third party in the Court’s proceedings.”

Excerpts from the Commissioner’s intervention before the ECtHR:

“Introduction – [***]

3. The protection of the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees is a priority theme of the Commissioner’s present work concerning all Council of Europe member states. The Commissioner has repeatedly stressed the importance of guaranteeing the individual right to seek and enjoy asylum and has addressed a number of relevant recommendations to member states. [***]

I. Observations on the current framework of refugee protection in Greece

6. The Commissioner is fully cognisant of the considerable, mixed migration (immigrants and asylum seekers) flow pressures that have been exerted on Greece, as is the case for other Mediterranean Council of Europe member states, for many years. The increase of irregular migration into Greece that has occurred particularly in the last five years has further strained this country’s resources. Nonetheless, the complex international phenomenon of migration should be dealt with by Greece and all other Council of Europe member states concerned in a manner which is not only efficient but also effectively respectful of the Council of Europe human rights standards.

7. Greece received the sixth largest number of refugee applicants in the EU during the first half of 2009 (9 800 applications).

8. In 2009, a total of 15 928 asylum applications were lodged in Greece; there were 11 recognitions of Convention refugee status and 18 grants of humanitarian status or subsidiary protection. The Commissioner has noted with concern that in 2009 the recognition rate at first instance was 0,04% for Convention refugee status and 0,06% for the other two statuses. The pending applications at first instance in 2009 reached 3 122. As regards asylum appeals in 2009, there were 12 095 appeals, 25 recognitions of Convention refugee status and 11 grants of humanitarian or subsidiary protection. The respective recognition rates on appeal were 2,87% and 1,26%. On 10 February 2010 the Commissioner was informed by the Minister of Citizen Protection of the fact that the total of pending asylum claims in early February 2010 was as high as 44 560, and found this to be worrying.

9. The Commissioner noted that during the first ten months of 2009 Greece received 7 857 applications from other EU member states to receive back refugee applicants under the Dublin Regulation. Of these applications, 2 770 were accepted and 106 rejected. The final transfers to Greece during that period totalled 995. [***]

II. Major issues concerning the asylum procedure in Greece and human rights safeguards

Legal framework  [***]

Asylum seekers’ access to domestic and international remedies

23. The Commissioner recalls his Recommendation concerning the rights of aliens wishing to enter a Council of Europe member State and the enforcement of expulsion orders, where he stresses the need for the right of judicial remedy within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention not only to be guaranteed in law but also to be granted in practice when a person alleges that the competent authorities have contravened or are likely to contravene a right guaranteed by the Convention. [***]

27. In view of the above, the Commissioner is worried that asylum seekers in Greece face a serious, real risk of being deprived of their right to an effective remedy in respect of the violations of the Convention of which they allege to be victims, which is guaranteed under Article 13 of the Convention and Article 39 of the Directive 2005/85/EC. The notion of an effective remedy under Article 13 requires a scope of review conducted by a domestic court able to address the key elements of whether there has been a violation of the Convention.

28. As regards access to the European Court of Human Rights, although this is guaranteed in principle for every individual within Greece’s jurisdiction, lodging an application before the Court appears to be very difficult in practice. The same applies for requests made under Rule 39 of the Rules of the Court (interim measures): the number of such requests introduced from and against Greece seems to be quite low compared to other state parties, and can be linked to difficulties, described in other parts of the present written submission, in accessing interpretation services and lawyers, in particular for people in detention, and to the lack of proper legal information available in general.

Protection of asylum seekers from refoulement

29. During both his visits the Commissioner was informed by migrants he met and by Greek refugee lawyers about instances of non registration by the Police of asylum claims and of instances of refoulement, especially from Greece to Turkey. Such forced returns have occasionally taken place before the migrants were able to apply for asylum, but also concern ‘pink card’ holders registered as asylum seekers in Greece. Characteristically, during the Commissioner’s discussions with migrant detainees at the Feres border guard station in December 2008, one of them reported that of the group of 65 persons who were arrested in 2008, having crossed the Evros river, 50 of them were ‘immediately deported’. [***]

31. In this context, it is noted that despite the Commissioner’s recommendations, Greece has not as yet acceded to the 1963 Protocol No. 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights which, inter alia, proscribes the collective expulsion of aliens, while Turkey still adheres to the geographical limitation of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, thus excluding from refugee status persons coming from outside of Europe.

32. During his visit to Greece in February 2010 the Commissioner was informed of and concerned at another reported case of refoulement concerning a group of 43 Kurds who had arrived at the town of Chania, Crete on 18 July 2009; 17 of them applied for refugee status. According to NGO reports, on 27 July 2009 they were all transferred to the aliens’ detention centre of Venna (North East Greece) from where they were subsequently expelled to Turkey. A series of other collective expulsions of migrant groups, ranging from 30 to 120 persons, to Turkey (through the land border of the Evros department) from various eastern Aegean islands were reported by Greek refugee lawyers to have occurred in July and August 2009. The Commissioner was informed by Greek refugee lawyers of more similar collective expulsions that have reportedly occurred in December 2009, January and February 2010.

33. The Commissioner underlines that such practices are not compatible with member states’ obligations recalled by the Committee of Ministers Twenty Guidelines on Forced Returns (especially Guideline 3 – prohibition of collective expulsion) and with the states’ fundamental obligation under the Convention not to return a person to a country where they would face a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3, or even Article 2. The Commissioner is concerned that asylum seekers returning to Greece by virtue of the Dublin Regulation may face such risks, jeopardising the enjoyment by them of their human rights enshrined in the Convention. [***]

Conclusions

47. In conclusion, the Commissioner considers that current asylum law and practice in Greece are not in compliance with international and European human rights standards. In particular:

– access to refugee protection remains highly problematic, notably due to the non-functioning of the first instance Advisory Refugee Committees, lack of proper information on asylum procedures and legal aid that should be available to potential or actual asylum seekers, widely reported instances of refoulement or non-registration of asylum claims;

– the quality of asylum decisions at first instance is inadequate, notably because of structural deficiencies and lack of procedural safeguards, in particular concerning the provision of legal aid and interpretation;

– existing domestic remedy against negative asylum applications is not effective;

– asylum seekers, including persons transferred under the Dublin Regulation, face extremely harsh living conditions in Greece.

48. Since the beginning of his mandate, the Commissioner has been following developments relating to migration, and especially asylum, in Greece. The Commissioner is pleased to note the new Greek government’s decision and willingness, shown to him during his visit in February 2010, to overhaul the refugee protection system and overcome its current serious, chronic and structural deficiencies.

49. The Commissioner fully supports these efforts and has urged the Greek authorities to proceed and engage with determination and commitment in the necessary legislative and administrative changes that would bring the Greek asylum system in line with international and European human rights standards.”

Click here for full submission to ECtHR.

Click here for the Commissioner’s Press Statement.

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by | 14 Dec 2009 · 22:17

ECtHR Communicates Case of ‘Hirsi et Autres c. Italie’ Relating to Italy’s Summary Migrant Interdiction Programme

On 17 November the Second Section of the European Court of Human Rights communicated the case of Hirsi and others v Italy, Requête no 27765/09.  The case was filed on 26 May 2009 by 11 Somalis and 13 Eritreans who were among the first group of about 200 migrants interdicted by Italian authorities and summarily returned to Libya under the terms of the Libya-Italy agreement which took effect on 4 February 2009.  The Applicants were intercepted on 6 May 2009 approximately 35 miles south of Lampedusa.

The Applicants allege violations of numerous provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights including:

Protocol 4 Art. 4 Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens;

Art. 3 Torture;

Art. 1 (1) General undertaking/HPC;

Art. 13 Effective remedy/national authority; and

Art. 3 Inhuman or degrading treatment.

The Statement of facts, complaints and questions put by the Court to the parties is currently available only in French:

GRIEFS

Invoquant l’article 3 de la Convention, lu en conjonction avec l’article 1 de la Convention, les requérants se plaignent de ce que les modalités de leur renvoi en Libye, ainsi que leur séjour dans ce pays ou leur rapatriement dans leurs pays respectifs les soumettrait au risque de subir des tortures ou des traitements inhumains et dégradants.

Invoquant l’article 4 du Protocole no 4, lu en conjonction avec l’article 1 de la Convention, ils affirment avoir fait l’objet d’une expulsion collective atypique et dépourvue de toute base légale.

Invoquant l’article 13, les requérants dénoncent l’impossibilité de contester devant les autorités italiennes leur renvoi en Libye et le risque de rapatriement dans leurs pays d’origine.

QUESTIONS AUX PARTIES ET DEMANDES D’INFORMATIONS

QUESTIONS

1.  Les faits dont les requérants se plaignent en l’espèce relèvent-ils de la juridiction de l’Italie ?

2.  La décision des autorités italiennes d’intercepter en haute mer les embarcations et de renvoyer immédiatement les requérants, compte tenu notamment des informations provenant de sources internationales et concernant les conditions des migrants clandestins en Libye, a-t-elle exposé les requérants au risque d’être soumis à des traitements contraires à l’article 3 de la Convention dans ce pays ?

3.  Compte tenu des allégations des requérants (voir formulaire de requête annexé), y a-t-il des motifs sérieux de craindre que le rapatriement dans leurs pays d’origine, soit la Somalie et l’Érythrée, les exposerait à des traitements contraires à l’article 3 ?

4.  Le renvoi des requérants en Libye de la part des autorités italiennes s’analyse-t-il en une expulsion contraire à l’article 4 du Protocole no 4 ?

5.  Les intéressés ont-ils eu accès à un recours effectif devant une instance nationale garanti par l’article 13 de la Convention pour faire valoir leurs droits garantis par les articles 3 et 4 du Protocole no 4 ?

DEMANDES D’INFORMATIONS

Le gouvernement défendeur est également invité à fournir à la Cour toute information disponible concernant :

– Le nombre de migrants irréguliers arrivés mensuellement sur les côtes italiennes, et en particulier à Lampedusa, au cours des dernières années ;

– L’entité et l’origine du phénomène migratoire en Libye ; la législation en la matière en vigueur dans ce pays ; le traitement réservé par les autorités libyennes aux migrants irréguliers arrivés en Libye directement ou suite au renvoi depuis l’Italie.

Le Gouvernement est également invité à produire à la Cour les textes des accords signés par les gouvernement italien et le gouvernement libyen les 27 décembre 2007 et 4 février 2009.

Il est enfin invité à expliquer à la Cour le rapport existant entre les opérations prévues par les accords bilatéraux avec la Libye et l’activité de l’ « Agence européenne pour la gestion de la coopération opérationnelle aux frontières extérieures des États membres de l’Union européenne (Frontex) ».

Click here for “The Statement of facts, complaints and questions put by the Court.”

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