CCPR/C/116/D/2402/2014
Human Rights would be violated if the Swiss authorities deported the applicants to Italy
under the Dublin II Regulation without first obtaining guarantees from the Italian
authorities that the applicants would receive appropriate assistance adapted to the family
and the age of the children.
5.
It is true that, more recently, the Court appears to have ruled otherwise, for example
in the judgments in the cases of A.M.E. v. the Netherlands c and A.S. v. Switzerland. d
However, these judgments are based on facts which are unlike those in Tarakhel v.
Switzerland. In fact, the Court took pains to expressly note this difference in the facts
compared with the Tarakhel v. Switzerland decision, in paragraph 34 of A.M.E. v. the
Netherlands and paragraph 36 of A.S. v. Switzerland. In the latter case, the issue was strictly
limited to the problem of whether Italy would provide appropriate medical treatment for the
applicant’s condition. The Court found that the applicant had failed to demonstrate that he
would not have access in Italy to the treatment required by his condition and, moreover,
that his situation was not of exceptional gravity. The issues are not the same and the
Committee should rather have followed the Tarakhel precedent. The fact that there are
children involved, the pain of being uprooted and the level of vulnerability experienced by
the family in the country of first entry are decisive risk criteria, of which the Committee has
not taken sufficient account.
6.
All of these considerations lead me to believe that, in the present case, the
communication was admissible and that, in view of the heightened instability and
vulnerability of the complainants’ situation, their deportation to Italy would put them at real,
serious and specific risk, in violation of article 7 of the Covenant.
c
d
12
European Court of Human Rights, A.M.E. v. the Netherlands (application No. 51428/10), decision of
13 January 2015.
European Court of Human Rights, A.S. v. Switzerland (application No. 39350/13), decision of 30 June
2015.
GE.16-10167