Court
European Court of Human Rights
Decided
July 8, 2021
Docket
Application no. 51246/17; ECLI:CE:ECHR:2021:0708JUD005124617
Judge
Chamber of the First Section: Ksenija Turković, President; Péter Paczolay; Krzysztof Wojtyczek; Alena Poláčková; Raffaele Sabato; Lorraine Schembri Orland; Ioannis Ktistakis.
Outcome
Relief granted
Disposition
Unanimously: a violation of Article 3 “on account of the applicants being denied access to the asylum procedure and exposed to a risk of inhuman and degrading treatment and torture in Syria”; not necessary to examine the complaint about their treatment during border checks; a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4; a violation of Article 13 taken with Article 3 and Article 4 of Protocol No. 4; and Poland “has failed to discharge its obligations under Article 34 of the Convention”. The Court continued to indicate that the applicants should not be removed to Belarus “if and when they present themselves at the Polish border crossing” until the judgment became final, and awarded EUR 10,000 to each applicant for non-pecuniary damage. The judgment became final on 22 November 2021.
Nationality
Three Syrian nationals who had lived and studied in Belarus; the first two are brothers (paragraphs 2 and 7). The first and second applicants said they had received conscription orders from the Syrian army and belonged to the Druze community, “one of the most persecuted minorities in Syria” (paragraph 6).
Third country
Belarus. Border guards at Terespol turned them away to Belarus on five occasions in July 2017, including on the day the Court indicated an interim measure and the day after (paragraphs 5, 11, 14 and 69). The Court found that returning them there risked “chain‑refoulement” to Syria (paragraphs 63 and 64).
The applicants went to the border crossing at Terespol three times between 14 and 18 July 2017 and, they said, asked each time for international protection (paragraph 5). Each time the border guards issued decisions turning them away on the ground that they were “simply trying to emigrate for economic or personal reasons”, based on official notes that the applicants had not signed (paragraph 8).
On 20 July 2017, “at 10.08 a.m. the Court (the duty judge) decided to apply Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, indicating to the Government that the applicants should not be removed to Belarus until 3 August 2017. The Government were informed of the interim measure before the planned time of expulsion. Nevertheless, the applicants were returned to Belarus at 11.25 a.m.” (paragraph 11). The next day they came back with a copy of the Court’s letter and the conscription orders, and were sent back again (paragraphs 13 and 14).
The Court held that the applicants “could arguably claim that there was no guarantee that their asylum applications would be seriously examined by the Belarusian authorities and that their return to Syria could violate Article 3 of the Convention”, and that Poland was obliged to allow them “to remain within Polish jurisdiction until such time that their claims had been properly reviewed by a competent domestic authority” (paragraph 64). It rejected the argument that EU law required the refusals: the measure “fell outside the scope of Poland’s strict international legal obligations” (paragraph 67). Sending them back on each of the five occasions “constituted a violation of Article 3 of the Convention” (paragraph 69).
Their cases “were part of the same wider policy” found in M.K. and Others v. Poland, and the decisions “constituted a collective expulsion of aliens within the meaning of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4” (paragraph 83).
Caution
Like M.K. and Others v. Poland (see that entry), the judgment concerns an official border crossing in 2016 and 2017. It does not decide the summary returns at the Belarusian border from the summer of 2021, which are before the Grand Chamber in A.R. and Others v. Poland, to be ruled on 24 November 2026. The judgment records that the applicants “currently reside in Belarus” (paragraph 2); it does not record what happened to them after it was delivered.
Access to asylum
Pushbacks
Chain refoulement
Collective expulsion
Effective remedy
Interim measures
Article 3 ECHR
Safe third country
The court's own text
Public copy
Read in full in the English text on HUDOC (item 001-210855) on 8 November 2026.
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