Abstract

In M.K. and others v. Poland judgment, the ECtHR highlights a wide practice of systematic pushbacks implemented by the Polish Government at the borders. In the judgment, for the first time, the Court performs the test of the applicants’ ‘culpable conduct’, introduced in the controversial N.D. and N.T. v. Spain. The comparison between the two cases, and the recent Court’s caselaw on the matter in general, allow to critically reflect on the progressive framing of the prohibition of collective expulsions, which nowadays is the object of a particularly restrictive interpretative trend and on its relationship with the principle of non-refoulement.