The case A.M.A. v. the Netherlands concerned the applicant’s removal to Bahrain in 2018 following a risk assessment made in the context of his last-minute asylum application. He alleged that the Dutch authorities had not sufficiently assessed the risks of his being ill-treated upon his return to Bahrain and that they had not given him the possibility to effectively challenge their findings. The Chamber judgment in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment/procedural obligations) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court rejected the Government’s argument that the applicant had not used all the legal avenues available at the national level. It could not accept that the remedies mentioned by the Government for the applicant to challenge the decision denying him leave to remain in the Netherlands pending the examination of his new asylum application had been available to him in practice. The authorities had not apparently enabled him to contact and consult a lawyer or offered any other form of legal assistance, while at the same time it was clear that he could not take effective legal action without counsel. It also found that the authorities had excluded last-minute evidence submitted by the applicant in support of his claim that he was wanted by the Bahraini prosecuting authorities, without assessing its potential relevance in their final risk assessment, especially given other evidence that was already available in his case file. It found that such an approach had been too narrow and had not complied with the rigorous and careful examination expected under Article 3 of the Convention.

EHRM, 24 oktober 2023, nr. 23048/19

Bron: www.hudoc.echr.coe.int