HFHR’s complaint against compulsory return of Iraqi PhD student dismissed

Ameer Alkhawlany is an Iraqi citizen and former PhD student of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In April 2017 he was deported from Poland based on classified information which allegedly showed that Mr Alkhawlany was a “security threat”. In today’s ruling, a Provincial Administrative Court has dismissed the complaints against the compulsory return decision issued by the Head of the Office for Foreigners, which were brought by the Helsinki Foundation and Mr Alkhawlany.
PAC judgment
The PAC in Warsaw held that the materials of the case showed that the administrative proceedings in the case of Ameer Alkhawlany’s compulsory return had been conducted properly. The Court also held that all the foreigner’s procedural rights had been respected during the proceedings.

“In our complaint, we have argued that although the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights approves the use of sealed evidence in cases that involve a threat to national security, there are certain guarantees of the right to a defence that need to be upheld. For example, a foreign national must be given an opportunity to become familiar with the key reasons of issuing the decision in their case”, says Jacek Białas, an attorney representing the HFHR in the complaint proceedings. However, Mr Alkhawlany had been given no such information, so he was unable to respond to specific allegations of him being a security threat”, Mr Białas adds.

The HFHR has been involved in both the compulsory return decision proceedings and the proceedings for granting Ameer international protection in Poland.