Currently, the cases of summary returns at the EU border (so-called “pushbacks”) without analyzing individual asylum requests are widespread. If you are faced with this situation, we can offer you the following solutions.
Firstly, we can prepare a written asylum application for you, which you will need to show to the border guard of the country you plan to enter. In the absence of such a document it will be difficult to prove that you have applied for asylum in the country, which will affect the success of your potential application to the European Court of Human Rights or the UN Committee. In this line, the Court declared the complaint against Latvia concerning a pushback inadmissible as the applicants did not prove that they had submitted an asylum application to the relevant authorities at the border.
Secondly, if you are not admitted to the EU despite your asylum application at the border, we can prepare a request for interim measures (“Rule 39”, “urgent measures”) to the European Court of Human Rights for you. If such a request is granted, the EU country will be obliged to authorize your entry, accept your asylum application and allow you to remain in the country until the end of the procedure. We can also submit a similar request to one of the UN Committees.
Thirdly, if you are still not allowed to enter, we will prepare a complaint for you to the European Court of Human Rights against unlawful actions of the country whose border guards did not let you in. If you win the case before the Court, you can expect to receive fair compensation for the violation of your rights.
We have an example of a case of a family from Iraq, where we filed a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights against unlawful actions of Poland, which twice prevented the applicants from entering the country. Subsequently, the Polish Government agreed to reach a friendly settlement in the case and to pay the family EUR 20,000 as compensation.