This was the ruling of the Constitutional Court (VfGH) in a recent case, which was first reported by “Presse” and “Standard”. According to the ruling, a man’s complaint was rejected essentially on the grounds that the security situation had improved since the radical Islamic Taliban took power and that the man had a solid economic background.
Decision confirmed
The refugee, who lived in the capital Kabul before leaving Afghanistan, left in 2022 and applied for international protection in Austria. He later tried to do the same in Switzerland, but was rejected. In this country, the first instance, the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, granted him neither asylum nor subsidiary protection. In addition, deportation was declared permissible. The Federal Administrative Court confirmed this decision.
The person concerned appealed once morest the latter decision to the Constitutional Court, which, however, was unable to identify any wrong decision by the Administrative Court: “The Federal Administrative Court neither interpreted the law in a way that violated fundamental rights nor did it commit any serious procedural errors,” the ruling states.
Security situation changed
The Constitutional Court understands the assessment of the Federal Administrative Court that the security situation has changed insofar as “a serious individual threat to the life or physical integrity of the complainant as a civilian as a result of arbitrary violence in the context of an international or internal conflict no longer exists, covering the entire national territory”.
It was therefore also permissible to include the fact that the man’s family owns a house in Kabul as well as a farm and several cultivated properties, and that the complainant himself had expressly described his family’s economic situation as good immediately before his escape.
Not applicable in all cases
Of course, the ruling is not applicable to all cases of Afghans. The possibility of deportation depends on the individual case. Nevertheless, the status quo is likely to change to a certain extent. Since a ruling by the Constitutional Court in summer 2021, deportations to the country have been considered virtually impossible.
