CEDH · CASELAW;CLIN;ENG — 8 décembre 2022

.s3ABFC313 { font-size:10pt } .sD4B5322E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:justify } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .sA241FE93 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:18pt; text-align:justify; page-break-after:avoid; border-bottom:0.75pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .s2EF62ED2 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; font-size:12pt } .s4DDA3AA3 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold; font-style:italic } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s32563E28 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt } .s8F2B0B1B { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:12pt } .s97EB40D9 { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:14pt; page-break-after:avoid } .s65B66A85 { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } .s5F48796F { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:justify } .s7ED160F0 { text-decoration:none } .s3DC36BA9 { font-family:Arial; text-decoration:underline; color:#0069d6 } .s8B6C6D43 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; border-bottom:1pt solid #000000; padding-bottom:1pt } .sDF790F1E { margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center } Legal summary December 2022 M.K. and Others v. France - 34349/18, 34638/18 and 35047/18 Judgment 8.12.2022 [Section V] Article 6 Enforcement proceedings Article 6-1 Access to court Refusal of the administrative authorities to enforce orders by the urgent-applications judge requiring the State to provide a number of asylum-seekers and their children with emergency accommodation: violation Facts – The applicants, a number of parents and their children, are asylum-seekers who were living on the streets and who requested accommodation via the social welfare helpline, without success. They then lodged an urgent application for protection of a fundamental freedom ( référé liberté ) with the Administrative Court seeking an order for the administrative authorities to provide them with accommodation. In July 2018 the urgent-applications judge of the Administrative Court ordered the State to provide them with emergency accommodation. However, the orders were not enforced and the applicants continued to be homeless. The applicants lodged requests for interim measures with the European Court under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court. The Court granted the requests and indicated to the French Government that they should take charge of the applicants. Accommodation was then found for the families. Law – Article   6 §   1: (a) Applicability – According to the Court’s settled case-law, decisions regarding immigration and the entry, stay and deportation of aliens did not concern the determination of an applicant’s civil rights or obligations or of a criminal charge against him, within the meaning of Article   6 §   1 of the Convention ( Maaouia v.   France [GC], M.N. and Others v.   Belgium (dec.) [GC]). Nevertheless, these restrictions on the material scope of Article   6 §   1 related only to the subject matter of the dispute. Thus, irrespective of the status of the person concerned, the Court had accepted that Article   6 §   1 was applicable to disputes concerning social housing ( Tchokontio Happi v.   France , Fazia Ali v.   the United Kingdom ) and social welfare benefits ( Deumeland v. Germany ), including non-contributory benefits ( Salesi v.   Italy ). Under the Social Action and Family Code, any homeless person in a situation of medical, psychological or social distress had a right to emergency accommodation, which could be asserted in urgent proceedings for protection of a fundamental freedom within the limits set by the Conseil d’État. In the present case the urgent-applications judge had acknowledged that the applicants satisfied the criteria for the granting of emergency accommodation and went on to find that the State’s failure to fulfil its duty was established, giving rise to a serious and manifestly unlawful breach of the fundamental freedom constituted by the right to emergency accommodation. Accordingly, the applicants enjoyed a right for the purposes of Article   6 §   1. The right to emergency accommodation, owing to its social nature and purpose, was akin to the rights recognised in the context of the legally enforceable right to housing or of social welfare benefits for the purposes of the Court’s case-law. Accordingly, the decision to grant or refuse emergency accommodation constituted, in the present case, a civil right that did not equate to a decision regarding immigration or the entry, stay or deportation of aliens. Conclusion : Article   6 §   1 applicable. (b) Merits – (i) Complexity of the proceedings to enforce the orders of the urgent-applications judge – The Government, without indicating their sources, maintained that the reception facilities for families in the département concerned had been at saturation point, especially in July 2018, and that there had been insufficient funds to cover the cost of hotel accommodation. The Government did not indicate whether it might have been possible to accommodate the applicants in other départements . In any event, they did not refer to any positive steps taken by the prefecture, which represented the State in the département , to alert the central administrative authorities to the difficulties in providing emergency accommodation to homeless persons, particularly in the context of the enforcement of orders made by the urgent-applications judge of the Administrative Court. Hence, the Government had not demonstrated the complexity of the proceedings to enforce the orders made by the urgent-applications judge in the applicants’ favour. (ii) The applicants’ conduct – The applicants had been especially diligent in their efforts to secure enforcement of the orders made by the urgent-applications judge. In particular, they had made numerous calls to the social welfare helpline and the information and orientation centre and had contacted the prefecture with a view to enforcement of the orders. They had also instituted fresh judicial proceedings seeking the enforcement of the original orders to provide them with accommodation, in the context of the administrative phase of the enforcement process and via a further urgent application for protection of a fundamental freedom. Hence, the applicants could not be said to have been in any way negligent, bearing in mind that the binding nature of the orders implied their automatic enforcement by the State, both under domestic law and in order to comply with Article 6. (iii) Conduct of the competent authorities – Following the initial orders requiring the authorities to provide the applicants with accommodation, the prefect had not furnished the explanations sought by the Administrative Court at the administrative stage of the enforcement process, nor had he submitted any defence pleadings setting out the authorities’ position in the context of the urgent application seeking enforcement of the original orders. Likewise, he had not responded to the applicants’ requests and had   not enforced the orders in question until the indication of interim measures by the Court. Lastly, the State had at no stage lodged an appeal against those orders. The Court deplored the wholly passive attitude of the competent administrative authorities when it came to enforcing the decisions of the Administrative Court within whose area of jurisdiction they were based, especially in the context of disputes concerning the protection of human dignity. Furthermore, the Government had not provided sufficient evidence that they had been unable to fund the cost of accommodation. (iv) Conclusion – The actual length of time for which the original orders of the urgent-applications judge had remained unenforced might not appear excessive (between 12 and 27 days). However, the State administrative authorities had not merely delayed in complying with the orders of the domestic court, but had refused outright to do so, and the orders had not been enforced on the authorities’ own initiative, but only after the Court had indicated interim measures. The fact that the unenforced orders in the present case had resulted from urgent proceedings concerning emergency accommodation was of particular significance in assessing whether the requirements of Article 6 had been satisfied. Conclusion : violation (unanimously). Article   41: overall award of EUR 5,000   EUR to each of the three families in respect of non-pecuniary damage. (See also Deumeland v.   Germany , 9384/81 , 29   May 1986; Salesi v.   Italy , 13023/87, 26   February 1993, Legal Summary ; Maaouia v.   France [GC], 39652/98, 5   October 2000, Legal Summary ; Tchokontio Happi v.   France , 65829/12, 9   April 2015, Legal Summary ; Fazia Ali v.   the United Kingdom , 40378/10, 20   October 2015, Legal Summary ; M.N. and Others v.   Belgium (dec.) [GC], 3599/18, 5   May 2020, Legal Summary )     © Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court. To access legal summaries in English or French click here . For non-official translations into other languages click here .