Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: ND and NT v. Spain

  • Felix Peerboom

A.D. v Malta: The Continuous Application of a Defective Asylum System

January 12, 2024

by Felix Peerboom On 17 October 2023, the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) published its ruling in A.D. v. Malta (press release available in English and French). The Court’s condemnation of Malta in this case for its ill-treatment of the applicant — a vulnerable asylum-seeker and presumed minor suffering from tuberculosis (TB), […]

  • Vera Wriedt

Expanding exceptions? AA and others v North Macedonia, systematic pushbacks and the fiction of legal pathways

May 30, 2022

By Vera Wriedt The closure of the Greek-Macedonian border on 8 March 2016 entailed systematic pushbacks. The largest operation occurred on 14-15 March 2016, when more than 1500 refugees were summarily returned from North Macedonia to Greece. The complaint of AA and others v North Macedonia addressed this large-scale pushback operation. However, instead of condemning […]

  • Guest Blogger

‘Tell me your story, but hurry up because I have to expel you’ – Asady and Others v. Slovakia: how to (quickly) conduct individual interviews and (not) apply the ND & NT “own culpable conduct” test to collective expulsions

May 06, 2020

By Francesco Luigi Gatta, Research Fellow, UCLouvain, member of EDEM (Equipe droits européens et migrations) On 24 March 2020, the ECtHR delivered its judgment in Asady and Others v. Slovakia, which concerned the expulsion to Ukraine of a group of Afghan nationals. With a controversial ruling (passed by a slight majority of 4 votes to […]

  • Guest Blogger

N.D. and N.T. v. Spain: defining Strasbourg’s position on push backs at land borders?

March 26, 2020

By Hanaa Hakiki On 13 February 2020, the Court published its long awaited Grand Chamber judgment in the case of N.D. and N.T. v. Spain, the first case addressing the Spanish policy of immediate expulsions at the Ceuta and Melilla enclaves. In a speech the Court’s president had announced that the judgment would be “instrumental […]

  • Guest Blogger

Push backs of “badly behaving” migrants at Spanish border are not collective expulsions (but might still be illegal refoulements)

February 25, 2020

By Ruben Wissing (Ghent University) On 13 February, the Grand Chamber rendered a long awaited judgment, meandering over more than one hundred pages, in the N.D. and N.T case on the push-back practices against migrants at the Moroccan-Spanish border fence surrounding the city of Melilla – the so-called devoluciones en caliente or ‘hot returns’ by […]

  • Guest Blogger

Prohibiting Collective Expulsion in Melilla: What Should We Expect from the Upcoming Grand Chamber Decision?

August 06, 2019

Raoul Wieland studies law and social work at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is undertaking a work placement with Amnesty International’s Strategic Litigation Unit at the International Secretariat in London. On 3 October 2017, the European Court of Human Rights released its judgment in the important case of N.D. and N.T. v Spain. Considering […]

  • Guest Blogger

Judgement ND and NT v Spain: on the legality of police “push-backs” at the borders and, again, on the prohibition of collective expulsions.

October 16, 2017

By Prof. Dr. David Moya, Constitutional Law Department of the University of Barcelona, Migration Research and Studies Centre CERM, Public Law Observatory IDP Last week, the 3rd Section of the European Court of Human Rights published its Judgement ND and NT v. Spain, in a case brought before the Court by two foreigners from Mali […]