116 M.S.S. v. BELGIUM AND GREECE JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS become available until August 2009, when reports first emerged of persons having been forcibly returned from Greece to Afghanistan on a recent flight, leading the Court to reapply Rule 39 in the case of the return of Afghan asylum-seekers to Greece. 13. It is indeed the Court’s practice prior to August 2009 with regard to interim measures in the case of returns to Greece to which I attach particular importance in the present case. The majority of the Grand Chamber are dismissive of the respondent Government’s argument that the Court itself had not considered it necessary to suspend the applicant’s transfer to Greece by applying Rule 39. It is pointed out that interim measures do not prejudge the examination of an application under Article 34 of the Convention and that, at the stage when interim measures are applied for, the Court is required to take an urgent decision, often without the material with which to analyse the claim in depth. 14. I can accept that a State is not absolved from its responsibility under the Convention in returning an individual to a country where substantial grounds exist for believing that he faces a real risk of ill-treatment in breach of Article 3 by the mere fact that a Rule 39 application has not been granted by the Court. The role of the Court on any such application is not only different from that of national immigration authorities responsible for deciding on the return of the person concerned but is one which is frequently carried out under pressure of time and on the basis of inadequate information. Nevertheless, the refusal of the Rule 39 application in the present case is not, I consider, without importance. I note, in particular, that it is acknowledged in the judgment (paragraph 355) that, at the time of refusing the application, the Court was “fully aware of the situation in Greece”, as evidenced by its request to the Greek Government in its letter of 12 June 2009 to follow the applicant’s case closely and to keep it informed. I also note that in that letter it was explained that it had been decided not to apply Rule 39 against Belgium, “considering that the applicant’s complaint was more properly made against Greece” and that the decision had been “based on the express understanding that Greece, as a Contracting State, would abide by its obligations under Articles 3, 13 and 34 of the Convention”. However, of even greater significance in my view than the Court’s refusal to apply Rule 39 in the present case, is the general practice followed by the Court at the material time in the light of its K.R.S. v. the United Kingdom decision. Not only did the Court (in a decision of a Chamber or of the President of a Chamber) lift the interim measures in the numerous cases in which Rule 39 had been applied prior to that decision, but, in the period until August 2009, it consistently declined the grant of interim measures to restrain the return of Afghan asylum-seekers to Greece in the absence of special circumstances affecting the individual applicant. In the period between 1 June and 12 August 2009 alone, interim measures were refused