DEMIRCI v. HUNGARY - 48302/21 (Art 1 P7 - Procedural safeguards relating to expulsion of aliens - Expulsion on national security grounds : Remainder inadmissible : Second Section) [2025] ECHR 106 (06 May 2025)

Executive summary

The European Court of Human Rights held admissible and then found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 in relation to the first applicant’s expulsion from Hungary on national security grounds. It found that the expulsion was based on classified information not disclosed to him, without reasons and without sufficient counterbalancing safeguards, so it was not a decision reached in accordance with law. The Court also held that the second and third applicants had not shown the existence of family life for Article 8 purposes.

Key points

• Applicant: Orhan Demirci; respondent State: Hungary; co-applicants: his wife and daughter.
• Holding: violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 for expulsion on national security grounds without reasons disclosed to the applicant.
• Reasoning: reliance on classified information and a significant limitation of procedural rights, without sufficient safeguards, meant the expulsion was not “in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with law.”
• The Court accepted that the first applicant was lawfully resident when expulsion proceedings began, so Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 applied.
• Article 8 claim by wife and daughter failed on ratione materiae because they did not show family life with the first applicant.
• Sanctions/export-control angle: the case is about national-security removal procedures, not sanctions or export controls, but it is directly relevant to how secret intelligence can support restrictive action without full disclosure.

Why it matters

For sanctions and national-security practitioners, the judgment shows that secret-source security assessments can trigger restrictive measures, but procedural deficits can still invalidate them under Article 1 of Protocol No. 7. It is relevant to sovereign risk because it constrains how states can use classified national-security intelligence against lawful residents while maintaining legally durable expulsion decisions.

Implications

Authorities relying on national-security intelligence for immigration or expulsion actions need counterbalancing procedural safeguards if they withhold reasons and evidence. For compliance and litigation strategy, this strengthens challenges to secret-file decisions and pressures governments to build review mechanisms that preserve due process while protecting classified material.