Introduction

The procedural safeguards examined in Part III — Articles 5, 13, and 6 ECHR — apply in principle to any foreign national facing expulsion. The Convention system, however, accords a further, more specific tier of procedural protection to a defined category of persons: aliens lawfully resident in the territory of a Contracting State. Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 ECHR sets out minimum procedural guarantees concerning the expulsion of such individuals.

This instalment examines the scope, limits, and contemporary application of this provision, paying particular attention to the Court’s recent jurisprudence on expulsions grounded in national-security considerations and reliance on classified evidence — most notably in Muhammad and Muhammad v Romania and the very recent Demirci and Others v Hungary.

1. The Scope of Protocol No. 7, Article 1

Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 provides that “an alien lawfully resident in the territory of a State shall not be expelled therefrom except in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with law.” The provision guarantees the affected individual the right to submit reasons against the expulsion, to have their case reviewed, and to be represented before the competent authority.

This protective mechanism is directed, above all, at preventing arbitrary or summary expulsions. Its temporal and functional significance is best understood against the backdrop of the Article 13 right to an effective remedy: Protocol No. 7 supplements Article 13 by crystallising specific minimum requirements for the pre-expulsion stage of proceedings involving lawfully resident aliens.

Crucially, the provision applies only to “aliens lawfully resident in the territory,” and certain categories of individuals fall outside its scope. The Court’s case-law has clarified that Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 does not afford direct protection to:

• foreign nationals who have not entered the country through an immigration application;
• persons in transit through the country;
• foreign nationals admitted for a purpose other than residence;
• applicants whose residence permit application is pending;
• foreign nationals whose visa or residence permit has expired.¹

Within the Court’s case-law, these exclusions have been articulated with particular clarity. The following categories fall outside the direct scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7:

• foreign nationals detained for the purposes of expulsion who have not yet formally entered the territory;
• individuals held in airport transit zones and not formally admitted to the territory;
• persons who have entered the country unlawfully and have not yet obtained any legal status;
• foreign nationals whose residence permit or visa has expired;
• foreign nationals who have applied for a residence permit but whose application has not yet been determined, and whose legal status remains pending.

In circumscribing the personal scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 in this way, the Court has clarified that the Convention’s more specific procedural guarantees attach to settled aliens, while individuals outside this category must rely on the general procedural protections under Articles 13 and 6 ECHR (discussed in Part III).

2. The Substantive Requirements: Muhammad and Muhammad v Romania

The contemporary framework governing the application of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 derives principally from the Grand Chamber’s judgment in Muhammad and Muhammad v Romania,² which laid down a structured analytical framework for the procedural safeguards applicable to settled aliens in expulsion proceedings.

The Court held that, as a matter of principle, Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 requires that aliens facing expulsion have access to the factual material upon which the conclusion that they constitute a national-security threat has been based, and to the documents and case file underpinning that decision. These rights are not absolute: they may be restricted, but any such restriction must not impair the very essence of the provision by producing a procedural vacuum that undermines the applicant’s capacity to defend themselves.

Where restrictions are imposed, the Court requires that counterbalancing safeguards be in place. Relevant factors in assessing the adequacy of such counterbalancing include:

• the sufficiency of the information disclosed to the foreign national;
• access to the documents upon which the decision is based;
• the transparency of the proceedings;
• the availability of legal representation; and
• the role of an independent supervisory authority in reviewing the decision.

The Court has emphasised that these factors must be examined in each case both individually and cumulatively. Their simultaneous fulfilment is not strictly required; rather, the extent to which each safeguard must be engaged depends on the concrete circumstances of the case.

3. Demirci and Others v Hungary: Confirming and Applying the Framework

The Grand Chamber’s approach in Muhammad and Muhammad was recently applied and further developed in Demirci and Others v Hungary,³ which stands as the Court’s most contemporary authority on Article 1 of Protocol No. 7.

The applicants were Turkish nationals who had been expelled from Hungary. The Court found that they had been denied access to the reasons for their expulsion prior to its execution, had been unable to avail themselves of any administrative remedy, and had been deprived of the opportunity to submit a defence. This configuration, the Court held, amounted to a clear violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7. The absence of fundamental procedural safeguards — in particular, legal assistance, translation services, and notification of the expulsion decision — featured prominently in the Court’s criticism.

The first applicant had been convicted of causing serious bodily harm on 21 March 2014 and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for three years. Despite this criminal record, the applicant had continued to reside lawfully in Hungary for many years. On 5 August 2020, following the expiry of his residence permit and changes in the applicable legal framework, the applicant lodged a fresh residence-permit application. On 28 September 2020, however, the Hungarian Constitution Protection Office (CPO) issued a classified assessment report alleging that the applicant’s presence in Hungary constituted a direct and serious threat to public order and security. The report also indicated that the applicant was not cohabiting with a Hungarian national and should be subjected to a five-year entry ban. On the basis of this report, on 19 October 2020, the National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing rejected the applicant’s residence permit application.

The Court observed that the applicant had lived lawfully in Hungary for approximately thirty years and that his centre of life was in that country. The Court considered that an expulsion carried out without providing the applicant with information regarding the substance of the alleged threats, and without affording him any opportunity to defend himself, amounted to a violation of the procedural rights guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 7.

The Court did not consider it necessary to examine separately the applicants’ complaints under Articles 8 and 13 ECHR. Having found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7, which it considered to address the essence of the applicants’ grievance, the Court held that a separate examination of Articles 8 and 13 was not required.

4. The Significance of the Demirci Judgment

The Demirci judgment is of considerable significance for the Court’s jurisprudence in several respects.

First, it confirms and operationalises the Muhammad and Muhammad framework in a concrete national-security setting, providing practical guidance on the minimum standard of counterbalancing safeguards required where classified evidence is relied upon.

Second, the judgment reinforces the Court’s insistence on practical, as opposed to formal, effectiveness: the procedural guarantees of Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 cannot be satisfied by a regime in which the individual is deprived of meaningful information, representation, or opportunity to be heard, regardless of whether such deprivation is notionally permitted by domestic law.

Third, the case demonstrates the Court’s approach where several Convention provisions are potentially engaged by the same expulsion. By focusing its analysis on Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 and declining to examine Articles 8 and 13 separately, the Court signalled that, where the essence of the grievance is procedural in nature and concerns a lawfully resident alien, this lex specialis may provide the most appropriate analytical vehicle.

Conclusion to Part IV

Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 ECHR furnishes a distinct procedural regime for the expulsion of lawfully resident aliens, supplementing the general guarantees under Articles 5, 13, and — where applicable — 6 ECHR. Its personal scope is more circumscribed, but its procedural demands are more specific: reasoned decisions, access to the factual basis of the expulsion, and the opportunity to defend oneself before an independent authority.

The Court’s recent case-law, culminating in Demirci and Others v Hungary, has made clear that these requirements cannot be diluted by reliance on national-security concerns alone. Where restrictions on procedural guarantees are deemed necessary, they must be accompanied by counterbalancing safeguards sufficient to preserve the essence of the provision.

Read together with the protections examined in the preceding parts — Article 3’s absolute prohibition of refoulement, Article 8’s protection of private and family life, and the procedural guarantees of Articles 5, 13, and 6 — Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 completes the Convention’s architecture of safeguards against expulsion. However, the compatibility of any given expulsion with this framework depends ultimately on whether the decision is proportionate in the specific circumstances of the case. Part V, the final instalment of this series, turns to the proportionality test that the Court has developed to assess precisely this question.

¹ Nolan and K v Russia App no 2512/04 (ECtHR, 12 February 2009).
² Muhammad and Muhammad v Romania App no 80982/12 (ECtHR [GC], 15 October 2020).
³ Demirci and Others v Hungary App no 48302/21 (ECtHR, 6 May 2025).