• Revocation of a refugee status and entry ban of 20 years based on involvement in terrorist activities;
• Limited access to evidence based on national security grounds interpreted in the light of Article 47 CFR;
• Use of secret information and urgent procedure when national security is at stake in asylum and return proceedings. 

An Iranian national’s refugee status was revoked and an entry ban for 20 years was issued against him because research by the Dutch intelligence agency showed he was an agent of an Iranian intelligence agency and he had continued to work for that agency during his residency in The Netherlands. The research by the Dutch intelligence agency had resulted in an individual report on the applicant, on the basis of which the decision was taken. The individual report stated that the applicant was to be regarded as a danger to national security. The underlying documents and sources of the individual report were not disclosed to the applicant, but they were reviewed by the court. A separate chamber of the court had decided earlier that the limited disclosure of the documents underlying the individual report to the applicant was justified, among others to protect the sources, methods and techniques of the conducted research. According to that chamber, the interests of state security outweighed those of the applicant. In the main proceedings, the court had to decide whether the Dutch authorities were allowed to base the decision taken against the applicant on this ‘secret’ information.

The court explicitly referred to and cited the judgment of the CJEU in ZZ[1], and held that its judgment could only be based on facts and documents that had not been disclosed to the applicant insofar as this was absolutely necessary for reasons of state security, and that the applicant would always have the right to be informed of the essence of the grounds on which the decision against him was based, whereby taking into account the necessary confidentiality of the evidence.

The court ruled that the national procedure, consisting of two judgments – one on the limited disclosure of the documents and one on the decision taken against the applicant – satisfied the requirement of the CJEU concerning an effective judicial remedy. The court further held that, in conformity with the judgment in ZZ, the essence of the grounds for the decision had been disclosed to the applicant in the individual report by concrete facts, so that is was clear to him why the Dutch authorities considered him to be a danger to national security. Article 47 had thus not been violated.