FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 68992/10
I.F.W.
against Sweden
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 9 October 2012 as a Committee composed of:
Mark Villiger, President,
André Potocki,
Paul Lemmens, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 18 November 2010,
Having regard to the interim measure indicated to the respondent Government under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court and the fact that this interim measure has been complied with,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The applicant is an Iraqi national, who was born in 1969. She was represented by Mr F. Serce, a lawyer practising in Gothenburg.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant arrived in Sweden in July 2008, where four of her siblings are living, and applied for asylum. She stated to the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) that she had lived in Kirkuk with her mother and two brothers. In 2007 she had had a relationship with a man. A relative of his had told her brothers about the relationship. According to the applicant, her brothers thought that the relationship dishonoured the family. In June 2008, she had heard her brothers talk about the relationship and how they planned to abduct her. Shortly afterwards, she had fled from home and had stayed with a friend while planning her flight from Iraq. She had left Iraq at the end of June. She did not know the man’s family name or his address and could not remember the last time they had met. She had not confronted her family about the relationship but knew that it was not accepted in her culture. She had received letters from her sisters stating that her brothers were looking for her in Syria. She claimed that she could not receive protection in Iraq since her problems were related to the family’s honour.
On 20 November 2008 the Migration Board rejected the asylum application. The Board noted that the applicant had not been threatened directly by her brothers, but had only heard them talk about what to do with her. Moreover, she had not been able to state what would be the result of the threats. The Board further noted that she had not been able to give any information concerning the name, the family, the address or the occupation of the man with whom she had allegedly had a relationship. It therefore called into questioned the applicant’s credibility. It held that it had not been shown that there was a real risk that she would be subjected to ill-treatment.
The applicant appealed to the Migration Court (Migrationsdomstolen) and added, inter alia, the following. She had met the man in 2007 in a café in Kirkuk. He had worked with buying and selling property, cars and other things. She had told a sister about the relationship, but since her mother and brothers were conservative and had stereotyped ideas about how a woman should live, she had not informed them about it. She had wanted to marry the man, and it was only afterwards that she had understood that he did not want to marry her and that he had used her. She had never met his family. She had not been able to give his exact address but had given details about the neighbourhood in which he lived. She claimed that Muhammed was his first name, Ahmed his father’s name and Muhammed his grandfather’s. The last time she had been in contact with him was in May 2008. In December 2008 a sister had told her that the man was still in Iraq and that his family had given her brothers permission to kill him. In Iraq, the applicant had had a hairdressing salon which she had sold to a sister before leaving Iraq. A few days after she had left Iraq, a letter, addressed to her, had been found in the salon. The unsigned letter stated that the applicant and her family were to be killed since they were Sunni Muslims and Turkmen. She had been informed about this letter only after the proceedings before the Migration Board. Since she is a woman and her family belongs to a large clan with several contacts, she would not be able to relocate to another part of Iraq.
By a judgment of 20 November 2009 the Migration Court upheld the Migration Board’s decision. The court considered that that the submitted documentation did not prove the alleged need for international protection. In agreement with the Board, the court further held that the applicant’s credibility could be questioned in regard to her personal relationships and what she had experienced due to her relationship with the man. The court further questioned that she had lived in a family with such a strong honour culture. In that respect, it took into account that she had had her own hairdressing salon where she had worked independently and that she had generally been in control of her life. Furthermore, she had been able to flee Iraq on her own and it had taken considerable time before her family members in Sweden had got to know about the relationship. She had continued to live with these family members after they had become aware of it and she still lived close to them. The court also considered that the applicant had been vague in her statements about the relationship with the man, as she had not been able to give any information on the man’s family name, his family or his mother’s name and as she had not stated any details about their last meeting.
On 9 February 2010, the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrations-överdomstolen) refused the applicant leave to appeal.
COMPLAINTS
Referring to the statements made before the national authorities, the applicant complained that she would risk treatment in violation of Article 3 of the Convention upon return to Iraq. She also claimed that the Swedish proceedings had breached Article 6 of the Convention.
THE LAW
1. The applicant complained that her deportation would violate Article 3 of the Convention, which reads as follows:
“No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The Court reiterates that Contracting States have the right, as a matter of well-established international law and subject to their treaty obligations, including the Convention, to control the entry, residence and expulsion of aliens (see, for example, Üner v. the Netherlands [GC], no. 46410/99, § 54, ECHR 2006-XII). However, the expulsion of an alien by a Contracting State may give rise to an issue under Article 3, and hence engage the responsibility of that State under the Convention, where substantial grounds have been shown for believing that the person in question, if deported, would face a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 in the receiving country.
The assessment of whether there are substantial grounds for believing that the applicant faces such a real risk inevitably requires that the Court assess the conditions in the receiving country against the standards of Article 3 of the Convention (Mamatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey [GC], nos. 46827/99 and 46951/99, § 67, ECHR 2005-I). These standards imply that the ill-treatment the applicant alleges he will face if returned must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this is relative, depending on all the circumstances of the case (Hilal v. the United Kingdom, no. 45276/99, § 60, ECHR 2001-II). Owing to the absolute character of the right guaranteed, Article 3 of the Convention may also apply where the danger emanates from persons or groups of persons who are not public officials. However, it must be shown that the risk is real and that the authorities of the receiving State are not able to obviate the risk by providing appropriate protection (H.L.R. v. France, judgment of 29 April 1997, Reports 1997-III, § 40).
The assessment of the existence of a real risk must necessarily be a rigorous one (see Chahal v. the United Kingdom, judgment of 15 November 1996, Reports 1996-V, § 96). It is in principle for the applicant to adduce evidence capable of proving that there are substantial grounds for believing that, if the measure complained of were to be implemented, he would be exposed to a real risk of being subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 (see N. v. Finland, no. 38885/02, § 167, 26 July 2005). In this respect, the Court acknowledges that, owing to the special situation in which asylum seekers often find themselves, it is frequently necessary to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to assessing the credibility of their statements and the documents submitted in support thereof. However, when information is presented which gives strong reasons to question the veracity of an asylum seeker’s submissions, the individual must provide a satisfactory explanation for the alleged discrepancies (see, among other authorities, Hakizimana v. Sweden (dec.), no. 37913/05, 27 March 2008).
In the present case, the Court first notes that the applicant was heard by both the Migration Board and the Migration Court, that her claims were carefully examined by these instances and that they delivered decisions containing extensive reasons for their conclusions.
The Court finds, in agreement with the Swedish authorities, that there are credibility issues with regard to the applicant’s statements. Initially, it notes that, although she added some details in her appeal to the Migration Court, she has given rather incomplete information about the man with whom she alleges to have had a relationship. Furthermore, against the background of the applicant having run her own business in Iraq and generally appearing to have led an independent life, there is reason to question that her family has such a strong honour culture that an illegitimate relationship would lead to a risk of her being killed. This risk is even more implausible when one considers that it took a long time before her family members in Sweden became aware of the relationship and that she continued to live close to them after they had been so informed.
In these circumstances, the Court finds that the applicant has failed to make it plausible that she would face a real risk of being subjected to ill‑treatment upon return to Iraq. Consequently, her deportation to that country would not involve a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.
It follows that this complaint is manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and must be rejected as inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 § 4 of the Convention.
2. The applicant further complained of a violation of Article 6 of the Convention which, inter alia, states the following:
“1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. ...”
The Court reiterates that Article 6 of the Convention does not apply to asylum proceedings as they do not concern the determination of either civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge (Maaouia v. France [GC], no. 39652/98, § 40, ECHR 2000‑X).
It follows this complaint is incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention and must be rejected as inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 § 4.
3. In view of the above, it is appropriate to discontinue the application of Rule 39 of the Rules of Court.
For these reasons, the Court
Declares the application inadmissible.
Stephen PhillipsMark Villiger
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy