On Thursday 18 December, the Court of Justice of the EU (case C-679/23 P) decided to set aside a judgment of the General Court of the EU (case T-600/21) dismissing an action for damages brought by a family of Syrian refugees against the Frontex agency following their transfer from Greece to Turkey.
“The Court of Justice should set aside the judgment under appeal and refer the case back to the General Court”, states a press release. In its judgment, the Court first notes that EU law imposes on Frontex a series of obligations designed to guarantee respect for fundamental rights in the context of joint return operations.
In addition, it points out that these operations may only concern persons who have been the subject of written and enforceable return orders.
Frontex is therefore obliged to check that such return decisions exist for all the people that a Member State intends to include in joint return operations, in order to ensure that these operations comply with the principle of non-refoulement.
On 9 October 2016, a family of Syrian nationals of Kurdish ethnicity, consisting of the two parents and their four children, had arrived on the Greek island of Milos, where they had expressed their wish to lodge an application for international protection, reports the Court.
But only a few days later, the family was transferred to Turkey, following a joint return operation led by Greece and Frontex. Fearing that they would be sent back to Syria by the Turkish authorities, the family fled to Iraq.
It then brought an action against Frontex, which was dismissed by the General Court in 2023 (see EUROPE 13244/23), “on the grounds that there was no causal link between Frontex’s allegedly unlawful actions and the damage suffered, without assessing the other conditions of liability”.
The Court thus found in favour of the Syrian family and considered that the General Court had erred in considering that Frontex only provided technical and operational support to the Member States, without having to verify the existence of a return decision.
In addition, the Court holds that the General Court also erred in law in holding that any infringements of fundamental rights occurring during a return flight are the sole responsibility of the host Member State, to the exclusion of any responsibility on the part of Frontex.
Link to the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/k2l (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)