M.B. AND R.A. v. SPAIN

ECLIECLI:CE:ECHR:2022:0705DEC002035117
CounselFERNANDEZ VICENS P.
Date05 July 2022
Application Number20351/17
CourtThird Section Committee (European Court of Human Rights)
Respondent StateEspaña
Applied Rules3;13;13+P4-4;35;P4-4

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 20351/17
M.B. and R.A.
against Spain

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 5 July 2022 as a Committee composed of:

Andreas Zünd, President,
María Elósegui,
Frédéric Krenc, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 20351/17) against the Kingdom of Spain lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 9 March 2017 by a Guinean national, M.B. (“the first applicant”), and a Cameroonian national, R.A. (“the second applicant”), who were represented by Ms P. Fernandez Vicens, a lawyer practising in Madrid;

the decision to give notice of the application to the Spanish Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Mr. L.E. Vacas Chalfoun, State Attorney;

the decision not to disclose the applicants’ names (Rule 47 § 4 of the Rules of Court);

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

  1. Background to the case

1. The case concerns the applicants’ immediate removal to Morocco after they had climbed the border fences between Morocco and Ceuta. They asserted that that had amounted to a collective expulsion forbidden by Article 4 of Protocol No. 4. They also complained of the lack of an effective remedy in that regard and that they had been ill-treated at the border by the Spanish and Moroccan security forces. They asserted, furthermore, that they had been subjected to inhuman treatment in Morocco.

2. The present case shares a similar background to N.D. and N.T. v. Spain ([GC], nos. 8675/15 and 8697/15, 13 February 2020). However, in the instant case the events in question occurred in the autonomous city of Ceuta, a Spanish enclave of 18.5 sq. km located on the north coast of Africa, approximately 380 kilometres away from Melilla. Ceuta is separated from the Iberian Peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar. Like Melilla, Ceuta lies on the migration route from North and sub-Saharan Africa, which is also used by Syrian migrants. The border between the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, respectively, and Morocco is an external border of the Schengen area and thus provides access to the European Union. As a result, those two cities are the focus of particularly intense migratory pressure.

3. The Spanish authorities have built a barrier along the land border separating Ceuta from Morocco comprising parallel fences, a complex surveillance system and a permanent detachment of Guardia Civil. The aim is to prevent irregular migrants from accessing Spanish territory. Gates have been built into the fences at regular intervals to provide access through them.

4. There are land border crossing points between Morocco and Spain, located along the fences. Mass attempts to breach the border fences are organised on a regular basis. Groups generally comprising several hundred persons, many of them from sub-Saharan Africa, attempt to enter Spanish territory...

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