Protection of Fundamental Rights in the Area of Asylum: Two Cases from the Court of Justice’s 2016 Case-law

Abstract

Asylum is still one of the EU’s current top policy areas, which not only has an important political, economic and social impact but is also closely linked with the protection of fundamental rights. The author of this article has already analysed several times in this review’s columns the landmark decisions of the Court of Justice in which the EU judges examined, in the light of the fundamental rights, the EU norms on the grant of asylum as well as the procedures necessary for the purpose of applying these norms.

In this article, the two most important 2016 rulings of the Court of Justice in the area of asylum are analysed from the perspective of fundamental rights. In C-601/15 PPU J.N., the Court ruled that EU law allows an asylum seeker to be detained when the protection of national security or public order so requires. In joined cases C-443/14 & C-444/14 Alo & Osso, the Court set out that a place-of-residence condition may be imposed on beneficiaries of subsidiary protection if they face greater integration difficulties than other non-EU citizens who are legally resident in the Member State that has granted such protection.