42
AUAD v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT
and Karimnia, cited above, § 108; and M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, cited
above, § 293 in fine).
121. Concerning the “scrutiny” requirement, the Court observes that
when examining the applicant’s legal challenge against the order for his
expulsion, the Supreme Administrative Court expressly refused to deal with
the question of risk, saying that any threat to the applicant in Lebanon was
irrelevant for determining the lawfulness of his expulsion (compare with
Jabari, cited above, § 49). As for the “suspensive effect” requirement, it
should be noted that under Bulgarian law applications for judicial review of
expulsion orders issued on national security grounds do not have automatic
suspensive effect (see paragraph 35 above). It furthermore appears that the
courts have no power to suspend the enforcement of such orders, even if an
irreversible risk of death or ill-treatment in the receiving State is claimed
(see paragraphs 31, 34 and 37 above). The proceedings for judicial review
of the expulsion order against the applicant cannot therefore be regarded as
an effective remedy in respect of his grievance under Article 3.
122. The Government’s case was that the issue of risk would be
examined upon the enforcement of the expulsion order against the applicant
and that the authorities would not remove him from Bulgaria without
ensuring that this would not fall foul of the prohibition set out in section 44a
of the Aliens Act 1998 (see paragraph 38 above). However, the Court has
already found that there are no guarantees that before proceeding with the
expulsion the authorities would subject the applicant’s claims under
Article 3 of the Convention to rigorous scrutiny (see paragraphs 105 and
106 above). More importantly, the Government did not point to any
procedure whereby the applicant would be able to challenge their
assessment of those claims. From the provisions of the Aliens Act 1998 and
the regulations for its application it does not appear that it is possible to
bring a separate legal challenge against the enforcement of the expulsion
order, let alone that there exists an avenue of redress that meets the two
requirements set out in paragraph 120 above. The Court would emphasise in
that connection that the existence of remedies must be sufficiently certain
not only in theory but also in practice, and that it falls to the respondent
State to establish that (see, among other authorities, McFarlane v. Ireland
[GC], no. 31333/06, § 107, ECHR 2010-...).
123. In the light of the above, the Court concludes that the applicant
does not have an effective remedy in relation to his complaint under
Article 3 of the Convention. There has therefore been a violation of
Article 13 of the Convention.
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