GOLDSTEIN v. SWEDEN
Inadmissible
Gaukur Jörundsson;Wilhelmina Thomassen
The applicant is a national of the United States of America, born in 1951 and living in Sweden. He is represented before the Court by Mr Sten De Geer, a lawyer practising in Stockholm. The applicant arrived in Sweden on 4 July 1997 and requested asylum. During lengthy interviews by the Swedish authorities, he stated that since 1990 he had worked actively to reveal police brutality and other misconduct by the police in the United States. In 1990 he had founded an association called “The Commission on Police Ethics” and in 1995 he had started another organisation called “The Standing Committee on Law Enforcement Development”. As a consequence of his activities, he had allegedly been subjected to systematic police persecution since 1993. By 1997 the persecution had reached serious proportions. Allegedly, there had been serious attempts to injure him, he had been subjected to surveillance, his property had been destroyed and he had been attacked with chemical substances. His reports to the police authorities had been to no avail. On 19 August 1997 the National Immigration Board (Statens invandrarverk) refused the applicant public legal counsel in the proceedings before the Board. The applicant appealed against this decision to the Legal Aid Board (Rättshjälpsnämnden). The applicant’s asylum application was rejected by the National Immigration Board on 24 September 1997. The Board found that there was no evidence to show that the United States police authorities had been persecuting the applicant. Thus, he was not in need of protection in Sweden. The applicant appealed against this decision to the Aliens Appeals Board (Utlänningsnämnden). On 20 October 1997 the Legal Aid Board upheld the National Immigration Board’s decision not to award the applicant public legal counsel. On 24 October 1997 the Aliens Appeals Board refused the applicant public legal counsel in the proceedings before the Board. It appears that this decision was not appealed against by the applicant to the Legal Aid Board. The National Immigration Board’s decision not to grant the applicant asylum in Sweden was upheld by the Aliens Appeals Board on 30 January 1998. The Board found that if the applicant had been subjected to the alleged maltreatment in the United States, it was the result of criminal acts committed by individuals and was not attributable to the State. No appeal lay against this decision. Subsequently, against the same background as initially, the applicant submitted a new request for asylum to the Aliens Appeals Board and also applied for legal aid. On 4 September 1998 the Board refused the applicant public legal counsel and also rejected his new application for asylum. No appeal lay against either of these decisions.