Another client safe. Another colectivo that can no longer find him.
When the court believes the applicant: a judgment on persecution by Venezuelan colectivos
A German Administrative Court has granted refugee status to a Venezuelan national and overturned the BAMF's denial. The deportation order and the entry and residence ban were also annulled. The BAMF had rejected the application on the basis that the threats did not meet the threshold of persecution and that internal protection was available in other parts of the country. The court took a different view. The decision matters because it brings together, with unusual clarity, three elements the BAMF often handles in fragments: the presumption of past persecution, the qualification of colectivos as actors within the meaning of Section 3c of the Asylum Act, and the absence of internal protection where persecution extends beyond a single location.
1. The facts the court established
The applicant is a Venezuelan national. Before fleeing he lived with his family and ran a modest economic activity. He quietly supported one of Venezuela's opposition parties, without playing a public role. Over the course of several months he was repeatedly threatened by members of a regional colectivo, in part at gunpoint. The demand was always the same: stop supporting the opposition. Shortly after the final incident he left Venezuela and applied for asylum in Germany.
2. The presumption of past persecution
Article 4(4) of Directive 2011/95/EU contains an evidentiary rule that decides many proceedings in practice. Anyone who has already been persecuted, has suffered serious harm, or has been directly threatened with such persecution or harm benefits from a serious indication that the fear of persecution is well founded. The result is a lowered standard of proof: repetition must be ruled out with sufficient probability, not the other way around. The court applied the presumption to the applicant. After examining the file and questioning him at the oral hearing, it was satisfied that his account was truthful. The link between past persecution and flight was secured by their temporal proximity: the applicant left the country in close succession to the final threatening incident.
3. Colectivos as actors of persecution
A central section of the judgment describes the Venezuelan colectivos. The court distinguishes three generations. The first, emerging in the 1980s, was ideologically independent and partly linked to earlier guerrilla groups. The second arose with Chávez's accession in 1999, was armed and state-financed, and served the government as an instrument in low-income neighbourhoods. The third emerged with the economic collapse under Maduro and is paramilitary and parapolice in character, directly connected to the state apparatus. On this basis the court qualifies the colectivos as actors within the meaning of Section 3c of the Asylum Act: either as quasi-state organisations, or as non-state actors against whom the Venezuelan state offers no effective protection. The reasoning draws on reports from the German Federal Foreign Office, Amnesty International, EASO, UNHCR, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration, Insight Crime and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
4. Why there was no internal protection
Section 3e of the Asylum Act requires the applicant to seek protection in another part of the country of origin, provided that protection is effective, accessible and reasonable. The court rejected this rule on the facts. The applicant had been located and threatened at several different places in the country. The judgment recalls, with reference to Amnesty International and the German Foreign Office, that where the regime has an interest in continued persecution, colectivos can track a person at different locations across years. The point is not that internal relocation is impossible in every case, but that for this applicant, with this profile, internal protection was not reasonably available. A second ground supported the conclusion: there was no indication that the applicant could secure his economic minimum at any place of refuge.
5. Practical takeaways
Three lessons follow. First, document in detail. Every threat, every relocation, every actor, with concrete dates and places. Second, anchor the account in available country information. The judgment is built on public reports from recognised institutions; an experienced migration lawyer integrates these sources from the start. Third, prepare for the oral hearing. The personal impression the court forms in the hearing is often the decisive factor. The presumption of past persecution works when the account is coherent, the events are placed in time and space, and external sources confirm the pattern.
6. Our representation
KAP Rechtsanwälte represented the applicant from the filing of the action through to judgment. We litigate Venezuelan and Colombian asylum cases before the Administrative Courts of Dresden, Chemnitz, Leipzig, Göttingen, Trier and others. We advise in German, English and Spanish. info@kap-kanzlei.de
https://kap-kanzlei.de/en/5/contact.html
