On 15 October 2020, in the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Muhammad and Muhammad v. Romania (application no. 80982/12), the European Court of Human Rights held, by a majority, that there had been a violation concerning the procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens (Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights).

The case concerned a procedure to remove two Pakistani nationals from Romania after they had been declared undesirable.

The Court found, in particular, that the applicants had received only very general information about the legal characterisation of the accusations against them, while none of their specific acts which allegedly endangered national security could be seen from the file. Nor had they been provided with any information about the key stages in the proceedings or about the possibility of accessing classified documents in the file through a lawyer holding authorisation to consult such documents.

Having regard to the proceedings as a whole and taking account of the margin of appreciation afforded to the States in such matters, the Court found that the limitations imposed on the applicants’ enjoyment of the rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 had not been counterbalanced in the domestic proceedings such as to preserve the very essence of those rights.