In a final judgment delivered on Wednesday 14 September in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for failing to protect against arbitrariness in a case concerning the repatriation of jihadist families detained since 2019 in Kurdish-administered camps in north-eastern Syria.
The applicants are two French couples who had applied, unsuccessfully, for the repatriation of their daughters who left for Syria in 2014 and 2015 and their three grandchildren: two boys aged 3 and 5 and an 8-year-old girl.
The Court does not call for their repatriation - this is a political issue that remains within the competence of national sovereignty - but denounces the lack of “appropriate safeguards against arbitrariness” that characterised the French government’s decision and deprived the applicants of elements that would allow them to “usefully challenge the grounds retained by the authorities”.
The decision in question was not supported by legal arguments and was rejected when the applicants appealed to the Judicial Court of Paris and the Council of State, both of which refused to rule on what they considered to be “a prerogative of the executive”.
“It is incumbent on the French government to resume consideration of the applicants’ applications as soon as possible”, the Court said, ordering Paris to pay €18,000 and €13,200 to the two families for their costs and expenses.
The judgment does not establish a general right to repatriation, but requires that every refusal of repatriation be accompanied by an “appropriate individual examination by a body independent and detached from the executive authorities of the State”.
Reference is also made to the best interests of children and their vulnerability. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)