ECtHR, 18 november 2021, M.H. and Others v. Croatia, Appl. nos. 15670/18 and 43115/18

Reaching the Dead-end Track on the Balkan Route – Rule of Law and Human Rights at the Croatian Borders: The Court of Strasbourg certifies a Critical Situation.

Résumé

With the judgment in the case M.H. and Others v. Croatia, the ECtHR found multiple violations of the Convention concerning the push-back of an Afghan family at the Croatian-Serbian border, which also led to the death of one of the applicants, a six-year-old Afghan child. The Court also found the subsequent placement of the same family in a transit immigration centre – for a period of 2 months and 14 days – to be contrary to the Convention, in terms of detention conditions as well as of its lawfulness. More generally, the judgment of the ECtHR unveils several serious deficiencies in the management of the Croatian borders, pointing to numerous issues in terms of respect for human rights and the rule of law principle.