FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 48510/11
I.S.A and M.A.A.A
against Sweden
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 11 June 2013 as a Committee composed of:
Boštjan M. Zupančič, President,
Ann Power-Forde,
Helena Jäderblom, judges,
and Stephen Phillips, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 August 2011,
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 regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
The applicants are stateless Palestinians, originating from Syria, who were born in 1980 and 1984 respectively. They were represented before the Court by Mr R. Shah, Malmö.
The Swedish Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agents, Ms I. Kalmerborn and Ms G. Isaksson, of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
The first applicant grew up in a refugee camp in the south of Damascus. As from 2005 he was a member of the organisation Elan Damashk which, in the spring of 2008 allegedly led to his being sought by the Syrian secret service, as were other members of that organisation. The applicant managed to hide but his mother had been interrogated about his whereabouts and the family house had been put under surveillance. He decided to leave Syria in June 2008.
On 17 April 2009 the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) rejected the first applicant’s application for asylum. It found no indication that he would be of any particular interest to the Syrian security service. The decision was upheld by the Migration Court (Migrationsdomstolen) on 16 October 2009.
The second applicant applied for asylum in Sweden in August 2009. She claimed that she had been raped by a man in Syria in 2008, for which reason she feared that she would be subjected to honour-related ill-treatment by her own family upon return.
The second applicant’s application was rejected by the Migration Board on 22 March 2010 and by the Migration Court on 2 December 2010. They considered that it had not been shown that her family was aware of the incident and that, in any event, she could turn to the Syrian authorities for help.
In late May 2011 the applicants claimed that there were impediments to the enforcement of their deportation orders, asserting that they were in a relationship and that they had received honour-related threats from family members in Syria due to this. The second applicant claimed that, in April 2011, she had married another man from whom she had later separated. She was now pregnant with the first applicant’s child. Furthermore, they claimed that they could not return to Syria due to the deteriorating situation there.
On 31 May 2011 the Migration Board, in two separate decisions, dismissed the applicants’ petition finding that no new circumstances which could constitute an impediment to the enforcement of the deportation order had been presented. It held that the information about the threats was too vague and lacking in detail and that the general situation in Syria was not so serious as to constitute an impediment. The Board’s decisions were upheld by the Migration Court on 4 July 2011.
In December 2011 the second applicant gave birth to a daughter.
By decisions of 19 March and 17 September 2012, following the communication of the present application and subsequent to a further petition by the applicants about impediments to the enforcement of their deportation orders, the Migration Board granted the applicants permanent residence permits in Sweden. The Board had regard primarily to the significant deterioration of the security situation in Syria. As the second applicant was registered as a refugee by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), she was also granted refugee status in Sweden.
COMPLAINT
The applicants complained that their deportation to Syria would involve a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.
THE LAW
On 17 October 2012 the Government invited the Court to strike out the case and discontinue the application of Rule 39 since the applicants no longer faced a risk of being deported to Syria. No response has been forthcoming from the applicants.
The Court notes that the applicants have been granted permanent residence permits in Sweden and, consequently, will not be deported to Syria.
The Court considers, in the above circumstances, that the matter has been resolved, within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b). Furthermore, in accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols which require the continued examination of the case.
In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list and discontinue the application of Rule 39 of the Rules of Court.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Stephen PhillipsBoštjan M. Zupančič
Deputy RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy