Information Note on the Court’s case-law 214
January 2018
N.D. and N.T. v. Spain (referral) - 8675/15 and 8697/15
Judgment 3.10.2017 [Section III]
Article 4 of Protocol No. 4
Prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens
Group of migrants immediately taken back to neighbouring country’s territory after climbing border fences: case referred to the Grand Chamber
In August 2014 a group of about 80 sub-Saharan migrants, including the applicants, attempted to enter Spain by scaling the barriers surrounding the town of Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast. Having climbed the fences, they were arrested by members of the Guardia Civil, who handcuffed them and returned them to the other side of the border without conducting an identification procedure or providing an opportunity to explain their personal situation.
Orders for expulsion were subsequently issued against the applicants, who had succeeded in re-entering Spain illegally. Their administrative appeals, and the asylum application lodged by one of them, were dismissed.
By a judgment of 3 October 2017 (see Information Note 211), a Chamber of the Court:
– dismissed the preliminary objections raised by the Government as to the jurisdiction of the respondent State, the applicants’ victim status and the exhaustion of domestic remedies;
– concluded, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4, in the absence of any examination of each of the applicants’ individual situations, and of Article 13 of the Convention taken together with the same Article.
On 29 January 2018 the case was referred to the Grand Chamber at the Government’s request.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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