Published on 14 March 2022
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 64163/19
S.B.
against North Macedonia
lodged on 6 December 2019
communicated on 25 February 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant, a Roma who fled Kosovo[1] in 1999, had been granted refugee status at the time, and since then apparently lives in the respondent State together with her cohabitating partner and her five children. By a decision of 9 March 2017, issued by the Ministry of the Interior (“MOI”), the applicant’s refugee status was lifted and she was ordered to leave the respondent State on the grounds of national security. Her attempts to challenge the expulsion order proved unsuccessful at two instances of administrative courts. In a final judgment of 7 June 2019 the Higher Administrative Court upheld the MOI’s decision and found that the legal prerequisites for granting the right to asylum had ceased to exist and the applicant could have regulated her residence right under different grounds. In response to the applicant’s arguments that she had not been given the chance to challenge the evidence of her being a threat to the national security, it added that such evidence, although assessed by the court, was not decisive for the adoption of the judgment.
The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 to the Convention that she had not been given an opportunity to have knowledge of and to comment on the evidence in question.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Did the decision to expel the applicant – an alien who was lawfully resident in the territory of the respondent State – comply with the procedural requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 (see Muhammad and Muhammad v. Romania [GC], no. 80982/12, §§ 119-120, 15 October 2020 and Ljatifi v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 19017/16, § 35, 17 May 2018)?
[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.