Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 144
August-September 2011
A.A. v. the United Kingdom - 8000/08
Judgment 20.9.2011 [Section IV]
Article 8
Expulsion
Proposed deportation on account of serious offence committed as minor despite subsequent exemplary conduct: deportation would constitute a violation
Facts – The applicant, a Nigerian national, arrived in the United Kingdom in 2000 at the age of thirteen to join his mother. Two years later he was convicted of the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. In 2004 he was released on licence owing to his exemplary conduct and consistently good reports (he had obtained various secondary-school-level qualifications while in detention). Shortly before his release the applicant was served with a deportation order based on the gravity of the offence. That order was initially overturned on appeal, but following a fresh hearing of the case, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that the public interest in deportation outweighed the applicant’s personal circumstances. In the interim, following his release from detention, the applicant had continued his education, ultimately obtaining undergraduate and Master’s degrees. He found employment with a local authority in London, where he lived with his mother, who was by now a British citizen, and regularly visited his sisters who also lived there. In September 2010 he was informed by the immigration authorities that they were considering whether to deport him on account of his conviction although, on being advised that he had lodged an application with the European Court in 2008, they said that they would defer that decision.
Law – Article 8: Leaving aside the question whether the applicant – a young adult who had not yet founded his own family – could be deemed to enjoy “family life” with his mother, with whom he lived, the deportation order had in any event interfered with his right to respect for his private life. The proposed deportation pursued the legitimate aim of the “prevention of disorder or crime”. The domestic authorities had taken all relevant factors – including the seriousness of the offence and the fact that the applicant was a minor at the time of its commission – into account when deciding on the applicant’s deportation and their decision at the time had been within their margin of appreciation. However, the last domestic decision dated back to 2007 and no further assessment of the proportionality of the applicant’s deportation had taken place since. The immigration authorities appeared not to have taken any steps to deport the applicant since the conclusion of those proceedings, even though no interim measures preventing his deportation had been sought. When assessing the compatibility of deportation with the Convention, the Court had to consider the situation at the date of the actual deportation, not of the final deportation order, and, where deportation was intended to satisfy the aim of preventing disorder or crime, the period of time which had passed since the commission of the offence and the applicant’s conduct throughout that period were particularly significant. During that period, the applicant had not committed any further offences and the risk of his doing so had been assessed as low. He had taken advantage of the educational opportunities available in detention and had continued his education after his release, eventually obtaining a postgraduate degree and finding stable employment. In fact, the Government had not pointed to any concern regarding the applicant’s conduct in the seven years that had elapsed since his release and in deciding to expel him had relied only on the seriousness of the offence. Given the applicant’s exemplary conduct and commendable efforts to rehabilitate himself and reintegrate into society over that period, the Government had failed to provide sufficient support for their contention that the applicant could reasonably be expected to cause disorder or engage in criminal activities such as to render his deportation necessary in a democratic society.
Conclusion: deportation would constitute violation (unanimously).
Article 41: No claim made in respect of damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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