2023-07-18 11:35:58
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Belgium for failing to enforce a Brussels court’s decision to provide accommodation to an asylum seeker, and blamed the “systemic failure of the Belgian authorities ” in the matter.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday condemned Belgium for not having provided a place of reception for an asylum seeker despite a court decision obliging him to do so.
The case concerns a Guinean applicant for international protection complaining of having been without accommodation in Belgium, between July and November 2022, despite the decision of the French-speaking Brussels labor court ordering the Belgian State to grant him material assistance and to provide him with accommodation . The court order was issued on July 22, 2022, it became final on August 29, 2022, and was not finally executed until November 4, 2022.
In his judgment, the Court observes that the enforceability of the order implied its execution ex officio by the State under domestic law. However, “his execution was not spontaneous in nature and might only take place following an interim measure pronounced by the Court on October 31, 2022”.
Systemic deficiency of the Belgian authorities
The Court “cannot ignore that the circumstances of this case are not isolated and that they reveal a systemic deficiency of the Belgian authorities to execute final court decisions relating to the reception of applicants for international protection”, she adds.
Even if she is aware “of the difficult situation with which the Belgian State was confronted, she considers that she might not consider reasonable the delay given in this case by the Belgian authorities to execute a court decision aimed at protecting the dignity human,” continues the ECHR.
In his view, “this systemic deficiency has had the effect of placing a heavy burden on the functioning of a national court and that of the Court itself”, the Belgian authorities having opposed “a marked refusal to comply with the injunctions of the domestic judge which undermined the very substance of the right protected by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
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