S.P. v. Belgium (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 142

June 2011

S.P. v. Belgium (dec.) - 12572/08

Decision 14.6.2011 [Section II]

Article 5

Article 5-1-f

Expulsion

Detention of applicant in respect of whom interim measure by Court preventing his deportation was in force:  inadmissible

Facts – The applicant, a Sri Lankan national, arrived in Belgium in October 2003. All his requests for asylum, his request to regularise his stay on exceptional grounds and his request under the extremely urgent procedure for a stay of execution of the order for him to leave the country were rejected, and his subsequent appeals were unsuccessful. On 12 February 2008 the applicant was placed in a detention centre. On 13 March 2008 the Court, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, requested the suspension of the procedure for the applicant’s deportation to Sri Lanka. The measure requested was initially applied from that date until 27 March 2008, when it was extended “until further notice”. The applicant was released on 8 April 2008 and was ordered to leave Belgian territory by 13 April 2008.

Law – Article 5 § 1 (f): The Aliens Act entitled the Aliens Office to hold the applicant in a detention centre for two-month periods and he had been released before the expiry of the initial statutory time-limit for detention. The fact that the application of an interim measure had temporarily suspended the procedure for the applicant’s deportation did not render his detention unlawful, seeing that the Belgian authorities had still envisaged deporting him and that, notwithstanding the suspension, action was still “being taken” with a view to his deportation (see in this connection Gebremedhin [Gaberamadhien] v. France, no. 25389/05, 26 April 2007, Information Note no. 96). Although an unreasonable extension of the detention might have had a bearing on its “lawfulness” for the purposes of Article 5, the applicant had been released eleven days after the interim measure had been extended until further notice, a period which had not exceeded that reasonably required for the purpose pursued.

Conclusion: inadmissible (manifestly ill-founded).

In addition, the applicant’s complaints under Articles 3 and 13 were declared inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes

 

Full & Egal Universal Law Academy