On 31 March 2022, in a Chamber judgment in the case of N.B. and Others v. France (application no. 49775/20) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

A violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights in respect of K.G., who had been an under-age child at the material time, and no violation of Article 3 in respect of the parents, N.B. and N.G.;

A violation of Article 34 (right of individual petition).

The case concerned the placement in administrative detention for fourteen days of a Georgian couple and their then eight-year-old child, who had entered France unlawfully and whose asylum requests had been rejected. The Court considered that the administrative detention of an eight-year-old child under the conditions prevailing at the material time in the administrative detention centre where they had been placed, which had continued for fourteen days, had been excessive in the light of the requirements of Article 3 of the Convention. Given the child’s young age, the conditions of detention in the Metz-Queuleu centre and the length of the period of detention, the competent authorities had subjected him to treatment exceeding the severity threshold of Article 3.

As regards the parents, on the other hand, the Court stated that it had been unable to conclude, on the basis of the evidence on file, that they had been in a situation that reached the severity threshold to fall foul of Article 3. Moreover, having noted that the interim measure adopted by the Court on Friday 13 November 2020 inviting the Government to terminate the applicants’ administrative detention during the proceedings before it had not been enforced, the Court found that in the absence of any justification for such non-enforcement, the French authorities had failed to honour their obligations under Article 34.