The EU Court of Justice rules on terrorism and refugee status

The Court of Justice of the European Union has judged that refugee status cannot be automatically refused for having been a member of a terrorist group.  
The following summary is from ECRE – European Council on Refugees and Exiles (www.ecre.org):
“In its ruling on 9 November in combined cases C-57/09 and C-101/09, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) declared that being a former member of a terrorist group does not automatically mean that the person should be excluded from being a refugee. This decision depends on an assessment of the specific facts of the case and whether the person concerned can be held personally responsible for acts of terrorism.
The German Federal Administrative Court asked the CJEU to interpret the exclusion clause of the Qualification Directive (Article 12(2)(b) and (c)) in order to know if being member of a group considered as a terrorist organisation by the EU could fall under one of the criteria for exclusion.
However, in its answer, the CJEU stated that persons can be excluded from refugee status even if they currently don’t represent a danger to the host Member State. Also, according to the CJEU, exclusion is not conditional on an assessment of proportionality between the reasons for exclusion and the risk faced by the person if deported to his or her home country.
Member States may still grant international protection under their national law provided that does not entail a risk of confusion with refugee status within the meaning of the Qualification Directive.”