78 M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT whose office was 130 km away from the office of the Aliens Appeals Board, from attending the hearing. According to the applicant, his counsel had had no practical means of having himself represented because it was not the task of the permanent assistance service of the “Aliens” section of the legal aid office to replace in an emergency lawyers who could not attend a hearing. In support of this affirmation he adduced a note written by the President of the section concerned. The applicant further submitted that as his departure was not imminent but scheduled for 27 May 2009, his request might well have been rejected anyway because there was no urgency. 373. In addition to the practical inaccessibility of the extremely urgent procedure in his case, the applicant submitted that in any event appeals before the Aliens Appeals Board were not an effective remedy within the meaning of Article 13 of the Convention in respect of the risk of violations of Articles 2 and 3 in the event of expulsion. It could therefore not be held against him that he had failed to exhaust that remedy. 374. Firstly, he submitted that at the time of his removal his request for a stay of execution had no chance of succeeding because of the constant case-law of certain divisions of the Aliens Appeals Board, which systematically found that there was no virtually irreparable damage because it was to be presumed that Greece would fulfil its international obligations in asylum matters, and that presumption could not be rebutted based on reports on the general situation in Greece, without the risk to the person being demonstrated in concreto. Only a handful of judgments to the contrary had been delivered, but in a completely unforeseeable manner and with no explanation of the reasons. 375. In the applicant’s opinion, this increase in the burden of proof where the individuals concerned demonstrated that they belonged to a vulnerable group who were systematically subjected in Greece to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention made appeals to the Aliens Appeals Board totally ineffective. Subsequent events had proved him right as he had effectively suffered, in concreto, from the very risks of which he had complained. 376. Subsequently, once his application under the extremely urgent procedure had been rejected, there had no longer been any point in the applicant continuing the proceedings on the merits as these would have had no suspensive effect and could not have prevented his removal. In fact, it was the constant practice of the Aliens Appeals Board to dismiss such appeals because in such conditions the applicants no longer had any interest in having the measure set aside. Lastly, even if the Aliens Appeals Board had not declared the case inadmissible on that ground, the applicant could not have had the order to leave the country set aside because of the abovementioned constant case-law. 377. The applicant added that where administrative appeals on points of law against judgments of this type were lodged with the Conseil d’Etat the