Communicated on 15 June 2017
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 4558/17
Emrana HASANI
against the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
lodged on 30 December 2016
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Emrana Hasani, is a stateless person who was born in 1986 in Kosovo[1] and lives in Kavadarci, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. She is represented before the Court by Ms L. Noveska Andonova, a lawyer practising in Skopje.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In 1999 the applicant, a minor at the time, left Kosovo and arrived, together with her family, in the respondent State. She was granted asylum, which was extended on several occasions.
On 13 September 2007 the Ministry of the Interior terminated the applicant’s asylum. It noted that she was in an extramarital partnership with a Macedonian national with whom she had two minor children and held that she had taken no action in order to enter into marriage with her partner. The applicant was ordered to leave the respondent State within thirty days of the decision being served on her. The case was returned to the Ministry on three occasions by the Administrative Court due to procedural flaws.
On 23 February 2015 a second-instance commission of the Government upheld the Ministry’s decision of 2007 and found that the applicant’s civil-law partnership with the Macedonian national with whom she had four minor children (all Macedonian nationals) had been the sole grounds for her continued residence in the respondent State and that she had failed to take any action to marry her partner. It dismissed the applicant’s arguments that she had no personal identification documents, either in Kosovo or in the respondent State, which prevented her from regularising her status in Macedonia.
The applicant challenged this decision, arguing that it had not explained whether the reasons that had prompted her to leave Kosovo and obtain asylum in the respondent State had ceased to pertain. The administrative authorities had failed to establish whether the applicant would be persecuted or otherwise face inhuman or degrading treatment if returned to Kosovo. Furthermore, the commission had disregarded her arguments about lack of personal identification documents. In any event, that she had not been married to her partner had not been valid grounds for termination of her asylum. She had lost all contact with Kosovo due to fear of persecution.
The Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s complaints on two grounds: firstly, that she had not corroborated the risk that she would be subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment if returned to Kosovo and secondly, that she had not entered into marriage with her partner. On 13 June 2016 the Higher Administrative Court upheld this judgment.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains that her deportation to Kosovo would violate her rights under Articles 3, 8 and 13 (in conjunction with Article 3) of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. In the event of the applicant’s deportation to Kosovo, would there be violation of Article 3 of the Convention, taken alone and in conjunction with Article 13?
2. In the event of the applicant’s deportation, would there be a violation of the alleged right of the applicant to respect for her family life under Article 8 of the Convention?
[1] All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.
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