The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France on Thursday, December 8 for not having sheltered asylum seekers, despite court decisions going in their direction, in 2018 in Toulouse.
The applicants, two Congolese families and a Georgian, arrived in France between April and June 2018. The Haute-Garonne prefecture granted them all asylum application certificates, but either did not respond or refused their requests. accommodation. The three families, separately, turned to the administrative court of Toulouse. The judge in chambers granted them each an order requiring the prefect to find them a place of accommodation. Ordinances that have remained without effect.
5,000 euros fine for each of the families
The ECHR notes that the prefect, representative of the State in the department, “did not respond to the applicants’ requests and did not execute these orders before the intervention of the interim measures pronounced by the Court, following which only the applicants were accommodated”. The Court concludes “that there has been a violation of Article 6.1 of the Convention” European Court of Human Rights (right of access to a court).
The ECHR, the judicial arm of the Council of Europe, thus condemns France to pay 5,000 euros to each of the three families, as well as 7,150 euros jointly for costs and expenses.
Moreover, in a separate judgment, the ECHR does not condemn France for the evacuation of camps illegally set up in various places in the Paris region where applicants, Romanian nationals belonging to the Roma community, lived with their families. “The interference by the authorities with the applicants’ right to respect for their private and family life was prescribed by law and pursued the legitimate aims of protecting public health and safety, as well as protecting the rights and freedoms of others, namely the right of ownership of the owners of the land concerned.notes the ECHR here.