issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 190 (2025)
24.07.2025
Judgments of 24 July 2025
The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing one Chamber judgment1 which is
summarised below.
The judgment is available only in French.
Coulibaly v. Belgium (application no. 42975/19)
The applicant, Cheick Oumar Coulibaly, is a national of Côte d’Ivoire who was born in 1979 and lives
in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire).
Having arrived in Belgium in 2007, the applicant applied unsuccessfully for asylum on several
occasions. Between 2007 and 2019 he was issued with several expulsion orders but refused to comply.
The authorities placed him in administrative detention on 13 March 2019 pending his repatriation.
After several unsuccessful attempts, caused by the applicant’s refusal to board the plane, Mr Coulibaly
was returned to Côte d’Ivoire on 26 May 2019.
In the meantime, his appeal, contesting the validity of his administrative detention, had been
dismissed in April 2019 by the chambre de conseil, which held that his administrative detention had
been legally justified and ordered his continued detention. That decision was upheld by the
Indictments Division in May 2019.
On 5 June 2019 the Court of Cassation dismissed an appeal lodged by the applicant on points of law,
finding that it had become “devoid of purpose”.
The case concerns the applicant’s allegation that he did not obtain a final judicial decision on the
lawfulness of his administrative detention prior to his repatriation. In this connection, he relies on
Article 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
No violation of Article 5 § 4
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1
Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following a Chamber
judgment’s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel
of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a
final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the Convention,
judgments delivered by a Committee are final.
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution
Inci Ertekin (tel.: + 33 3 90 21 55 30)
Neil Connolly (tel.: + 33 3 90 21 48 05)
Jane Swift (tel.: + 33 3 88 41 29 04)
The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe member
States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.
2