On Friday 2 July, speaking as a “third party” in two cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights published her observations on the fate of French nationals detained in camps in north-eastern Syria.
Filed by parents and grandparents, these cases concern the refusal of the French authorities to repatriate their daughters and grandchildren detained under the military authority of the Syrian armed forces at the Al-Hol camp.
According to Dunja Mijatović, although the Court’s jurisdiction is “primarily territorial”, it is accepted that “an extraterritorial act may, in exceptional circumstances, fall within the jurisdiction of a State party to the European Convention on Human Rights”.
It is therefore up to France to repatriate its nationals who are being kept under poor health and security conditions that are incompatible with the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment set out in Article 3 of the Convention.
Not to subscribe to this “absolute and mandatory priority” would also violate Article 8 protecting private and family life.
These repatriations are also “an absolute necessity in preventing terrorist activities”, the Commissioner added, relying in particular on statements made by the coordinator of the Paris anti-terrorism unit.
Link to the Commissioner’s comments (in French): https://bit.ly/3dx6R0z (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)