FOURTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 65580/10
Y.A.
against the United Kingdom
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 1 September 2015 as a Committee composed of:
Nona Tsotsoria, President,
Paul Mahoney,
Faris Vehabović, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 8 November 2010,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
FACTS AND PROCEDURE
1. The applicant, Mr Y.A., is an Iraqi national, who was born in 1978. The Court has not been notified of his current address. The President granted the applicant’s request for his identity not to be disclosed to the public (Rule 47 § 4) on 23 August 2011. He was represented before the Court by McGill & Co Solicitors, a firm of solicitors practising in Glasgow.
2. The United Kingdom Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr Paul McKell, of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The circumstances of the case
3. The applicant arrived in the United Kingdom on 25 February 2008 and made an application for asylum the same day. He claimed that he had been persecuted in Basra, in southern Iraq, because he was a Chaldean Christian.
4. The domestic authorities accepted the credibility of the applicant’s account, notably that he was a Chaldean Christian and that he had fled from Iraq having been presented with an ultimatum by members of an armed group that he should either convert to Islam or leave the city of Basra. They also accepted that the applicant could not return to Basra and that it would not be possible for him to internally relocate to the Kurdish Regional Government controlled area of Iraq. However, the domestic authorities did not accept that there was a systematic and consistent pattern of mistreatment of Christians in Iraq and considered that the applicant could safely relocate “to Baghdad or elsewhere in Iraq”.
5. On 8 December 2010, the Secretary of State for the Home Department set removal directions for the applicant to be returned to Iraq on 17 December 2010.
6. On 15 December 2010, the High Court refused an application for interim relief to stop the applicant’s removal to Iraq.
7. On 16 December 2010 the Acting President of the Section decided, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, to indicate to the United Kingdom Government that it was desirable, in the interests of the parties and the proper conduct of the proceedings before the Court, not to remove the applicant to Iraq.
8. The application was communicated to the United Kingdom Government for observations on 30 August 2011. It was subsequently adjourned pending domestic consideration of a new Country Guidance case dealing with the specific issue of risk upon return to Iraq based on the general level of violence in that country. Those proceedings concluded on 15 July 2014 with the domestic authorities holding, inter alia, that the evidence did not establish that the degree of indiscriminate violence taking place in Iraq had reached a sufficiently high threshold to show that civilians returned there would face a real risk of being subject to that threat solely on account of their presence there.
9. On 9 October 2014 the applicant advised the Court that he had submitted fresh representations to the Secretary of State on 5 September 2014. The basis of those representations concerned the risk to him upon return to Iraq emanating from both the general security situation and on account of his Christian faith.
10. On 30 June 2015 the Court received a facsimile from the applicant stating that he no longer wished to pursue his application as he had been granted refugee status in the United Kingdom.
THE LAW
11. The Court notes that the applicant has been granted refugee status in the United Kingdom. In these circumstances, the matter has been resolved within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (b) of the Convention. The Court also notes that the applicant does not wish to pursue the application within the meaning of Article 37 § 1 (a) of the Convention. In accordance with Article 37 § 1 in fine, the Court further 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.
12. In view of the above, it is appropriate to strike the application out of the list of cases and, consequently, to discontinue the application of Rule 39 in the present case.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Decides to strike the application out of its list of cases.
Done in English and notified in writing on 24 September 2015.
Fatoş AracıNona Tsotsoria
Deputy RegistrarPresident
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