In The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (hereinafter “Minister for Children”, C-97/24, 1.8.2025), the CJEU applied the Reception Conditions Directive (2013/33) in the context of claims for compensation brought by two asylum seekers who complained about their treatment by the local authorities, who had left them without housing and provision of their basic needs for several months.

The emphasis on the role played by human dignity in the CJEU’s reasoning invites comparison with the approach taken by the ECHR in this area. As will be explained below, the interplay between these two approaches gives rise to some unexpected consequences, illustrating how intertwined the Convention and EU law can sometimes be.

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The facts in Minister for Children can be summarized as follows. The applicants, S.A. (an Afghan national) and R.J. (an Indian national) were denied access to material reception conditions, including housing, food, and other basic needs, for several weeks after submitting their applications. ​ The Irish authorities cited the temporary exhaustion of housing capacity due to an unprecedented influx of third-country nationals seeking protection, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ​ S.A. and R.J.​ were later granted retroactive allowances and eventually received accommodation, but they sought compensation for the damage caused by the lack of material reception conditions. ​The Irish authorities acknowledged the breach of EU law but argued that the situation constituted force majeure due to the sudden and unforeseeable influx of applicants.

The CJEU reasoned that under Directive 2013/33, Member States are obligated to ensure material reception conditions that meet the basic needs of applicants for international protection, including housing, food, and dignified living standards, as a requirement flowing from the fundamental right to human dignity enshrined in Article 1 of the EU Charter. ​ Even in cases of temporary exhaustion of housing capacity due to unforeseeable and unavoidable events, such as a sudden influx of applicants, Member States could not avoid liability for ensuring coverage of the basic needs of applicants for international protection. ​ The directive provided flexibility in how material reception conditions are delivered, allowing for financial allowances or vouchers as an alternative to accommodation in kind, provided they are sufficient to ensure a dignified standard of living and access to housing. ​ Failure to fulfil these obligations constituted a sufficiently serious infringement of EU law giving rise to liability for the damage thus caused. ​​

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Minister for Children appears to be the latest in a long series of cases before the European Courts about the poor treatment of applicants for international protection, due to circumstances such as the exhaustion of the housing capacities of Member States (see also Tudmur). Similar cases have been brought before the ECtHR, including M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece, Khlaifia and Others v. Italy, M.K. v. France and Camara v. Belgium.

In the latter case, which concerned an asylum seeker who lived in extreme poverty in the streets of Brussels, the applicant raised complaints under Articles 3 (ill-treatment) and 6 (fair trial) of the Convention. The ECtHR found a violation of Article 6, on account of the non-execution of a judgment by a domestic court ordering the Belgian State to provide him with accommodation and material support, but declared the complaint under Article 3 inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies (on this, see below).

What all these cases have in common is their reliance on the notion of human dignity, often in combination with the notion of ill-treatment, as justification of the refusal of any exceptions to the minimum protection standards to which asylum seekers are entitled to cover their basic needs. This also applies to Minister for Children (see §§ 37, 46 and 53).

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The Convention, for its part, does not explicitly protect human dignity. However, the ECtHR has long recognised that “the very essence of the Convention is respect for human dignity and human freedom” (see, among many others, Pretty v. the United Kingdom, § 65). Moreover, it has established a close link between respect for human dignity and the prohibition of ill-treatment (Article 3 of the Convention). Thus, in Khlaifia and Others v. Italy, the ECtHR stated:

“The Court can only reiterate its well-established case-law to the effect that, having regard to the absolute character of Article 3, an increasing influx of migrants cannot absolve a State of its obligations under that provision …, which requires that persons deprived of their liberty must be guaranteed conditions that are compatible with respect for their human dignity.” (§ 184)

The ECtHR however added:

“While the constraints inherent in such a crisis cannot, in themselves, be used to justify a breach of Article 3, the Court is of the view that it would certainly be artificial to examine the facts of the case without considering the general context in which those facts arose. In its assessment, the Court will thus bear in mind, together with other factors, that the undeniable difficulties and inconveniences endured by the applicants stemmed to a significant extent from the situation of extreme difficulty confronting the Italian authorities at the relevant time”. (§ 185)

In M.S.S. v. Belgium and Greece too, which concerned an asylum-seeker living in extreme poverty in the streets of Athens, much like the conditions at stake in Minister for Children, the ECtHR held:

“The Court considers that the applicant has been the victim of humiliating treatment showing a lack of respect for his dignity and that this situation has, without doubt, aroused in him feelings of fear, anguish or inferiority capable of inducing desperation. It considers that such living conditions, combined with the prolonged uncertainty in which he has remained and the total lack of any prospects of his situation improving, have attained the level of severity required to fall within the scope of Article 3 of the Convention.” (§ 263)

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Yet, while the approach of both European Courts to the extreme poverty in which asylum seekers may find themselves, with its reliance on respect for human dignity, would appear to be rather similar, Minister for Children may have an impact going beyond the sphere of EU law. It is another – and somewhat different – illustration of possible repercussions of the interplay between the Convention and EU law.

The question put before the CJEU was only about liability under EU law. One may wonder whether S.A. and R.J. did not also try proceedings capable of putting an end to the violation of their rights, but no information on this appears to be available. Thus, Minister for Children was only about whether the shortcomings of the Irish authorities in complying with the requirements of the Reception Directive were sufficiently serious to trigger Ireland’s liability under EU law.

After setting out the relevant criteria, the CJEU concluded that Ireland “may not avoid liability under EU law by pleading temporary exhaustion of the housing capacity normally available in its territory for applicants for international protection, owing to an influx of third-country nationals seeking temporary or international protection; an influx which, because of its significant and sudden nature, was unforeseeable and unavoidable.”

Thus, the CJEU acknowledged that EU Member States incur liability under EU law when they fail to cover the basic needs of asylum seekers to an extent as in Minister for Children. As a logical consequence, asylum seekers undergoing such treatment must be guaranteed access effective remedies for compensation. Which has a significant impact on the application of the Convention.

This is because according to Camara v. Belgium (see above), a complaint under Article 3 of the Convention challenging the treatment suffered by an asylum seeker who was denied accommodation is inadmissible for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies (Art. 35 § 1 of the Convention), if the applicant did not avail him- or herself of an existing and effective compensatory remedy against the respondent State (§ 132; in the same sense, M.K. v. France, §§ 168-170).

Thus, if it can be assumed that liability under EU law for treatment of the kind at issue in Minister for Children logically entails the obligation for EU Member States to make available compensatory remedies, these will have to be exhausted by applicants before filing an application under Article 3 before the ECtHR. Under this scenario, the task of the ECtHR will be limited to assessing whether the treatment endured, assuming it reaches the threshold of severity, was adequately compensated. In light of Camara v. Belgium, this effectively eliminates any possibility for asylum seekers invoking Article 3 against an EU Member State to obtain anything other than financial compensation in Strasbourg, over and above what may have been granted at national level.

This, in the end, raises a more fundamental question: is financial compensation alone an adequate response to breaches of human dignity? It may perhaps depend on the amount of the compensation. In M.S.S. the applicant was awarded more than 25,000 euros. In Camara the ECtHR held that the finding of a violation of Article 6 constituted in itself sufficient just satisfaction.

At any rate, this is an illustration of how much the Convention and EU law are intertwined and interacting, sometimes in rather unexpected ways. Here again, it will be for national judges and prosecutors to bear the brunt of coming to terms with this interaction, by dealing with claims for compensation under EU law, while having regard to the Strasbourg standards, thereby always asking the same question: what is the price of human dignity?