permit. It is up to the domestic law of the state to determine the conditions that must be met for the
presence of a person in the territory that must be considered "legal".
The provision applies not only to foreigners who have entered legally, but also to foreigners who
have entered illegally and whose stay has subsequently been regularized. However, a foreigner
whose entry and stay have been subject to certain conditions, such as a specified period and who no
longer complies with those conditions, cannot still be considered "legally" present. It should be
noted that the notion of "expulsion" is used in a generic sense and includes any measure that forces
the foreigner to leave the territory of the country, except for extradition.19.
Ljatifi v. "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", 19017/16, 17.05.2018
In 1999, the plaintiff moved from Kosovo to the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where she was
granted asylum status in 2005. Her residence permit was extended annually until 2014, when the
Ministry of the Internal Affairs withdrew her status, stating only that it posed a "risk to [national]
security", notifying her to leave the territory of the requested State within twenty days after
receiving the final decision, the national courts upheld that decision, noting that it was based on a
classified document obtained from the Intelligence Agency, and considered the plaintiff's argument
that the document had never been presented to her to be irrelevant.
The Court notes that, apart from the general statement mentioned above (danger to national
security), the authorities did not provide the plaintiff with any indication of the reasons on which it
based its assessment. The classified note of the Intelligence Agency, filed in the form drafted in the
proceedings before the Court, was not available for consultation in any case in the contested
proceedings in the presence of the Ministry. In the absence of a description of the facts on which
that assessment was based, the plaintiff was unable to present the case properly in the subsequent
judicial review procedure. "
C.G. and others v. Bulgaria, 1365/07, 24.04.2008.
The first plaintiff had his residence permit revoked and ordered his removal from the territory of
Bulgaria on the basis of a secret report from the Home Office, without giving any factual reasons
for the report. The plaintiff was removed from the territory of Bulgaria the next day without being
able to challenge his removal. The plaintiff complained that his expulsion had taken place in
violation of Article 1 of Protocol No.7 of the Convention.
The ECtHR has ruled that in the case of expulsion, in addition to the protection afforded by Articles
3, 8 and 13 of the Convention, foreigners legally residing in the territory of a State which has
19
Raportul explicativ din 22.11.1984, la Protocolul 7 al CEDO, disponibil la https://rm.coe.int/16800c96fd
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