Last week a desperate “ping-pong game” between the Hungarian asylum authority and a court in Pécs, Hungary came to an end on behalf of a man who suffered so much over years. Alexei Torubarov, who was politically persecuted by the Putin regime, has been recognised as a refugee. The lawsuit of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s client also reached the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which rendered its judgment applicable in all member states of the European Union: the court has the right to grant protection if in a previous appeals procedure the asylum authority ignored the court’s decision. With this recent judgment in Pécs, a domestic court first applied the CJEU’s ruling. Torubarov’s victory now gives hope to many other asylum seekers who are being arbitrarily denied asylum
