Judges in the Netherlands have reportedly refused to send asylum seekers back to Belgium over what they saw as a lack of care facilities.
The asylum seekers filed their initial requests in Belgium and should, according to the Dublin Regulation, be processed in Belgium.
According to the regulation, a cornerstone of the Common European Asylum System, the country in which an asylum seeker first applied for asylum was responsible for either accepting or rejecting the claim and the seeker may not restart the process in another jurisdiction
Four Dutch judges, though, were said have overriden this in the case of Belgium due to perceived issues with the care of asylum seekers, Belgian left-wing magazine Knack reported on April 16.
In one ruling, according to the magazine, the judge concerned said: “There are indications of serious fears that the reception facilities in Belgium contain systemic flaws.”
The case regarded a Georgian man who possibly faced ending up on the streets due to a lack of shelter in Belgium, with too many people on the asylum housing waiting list and Belgium’s capacity to house them having been exceeded.
If asylum seekers systematically ended up having to sleep rough, it could lead to infractions of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights for inhuman or degrading treatment, experts said.
Last year, the former Belgian State Secretary of Asylum Nicole de Moor decided to prioritise migrant families for shelter, putting single men on waiting lists, a policy that the current government has upheld.
NGOs working with and for migrants have said the government should do more to shelter migrants and said it was a political choice not to do so.
They suggested spreading migrants across the country in order not to overload a handful of cities dealing with asylum seekers, or give them “alternative material support” if they did have shelter space available.
The Dutch Council of State has been considering whether Belgium was doing enough for the reception of asylum seekers. Its judgment is expected in June.
The council investigated the same issue last year but reopened the case after receiving new indications of problems, reportedly provided by NGOs.
According to figures from the Belgian Immigration Department (DVZ), 45 people were transferred from the Netherlands to Belgium under the Dublin Regulation last year.
Brussels Signal reached out to the current Belgian State Secretary of Asylum and Migration Anneleen Van Bossuyt but had not received a reply at the time of writing.
