Facts
Julius Grundul, a Latvian national born in 1889 in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire, worked as a maritime customs official in Tien-Tsin, China from 1913 to 1947. After the occupation of mainland China by the forces of the People's Republic of China in 1947/48, he had to leave the country due to his political convictions and his belonging to a certain social group. Unable to return to Latvia, which was occupied and integrated into the USSR in 1940, he was registered as a "bona fide refugee" by the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and was welcomed in Norway in 1955. In 1956, he filed an action for payment of 5,504 Swiss francs with the District Court III of Berne. The defendant requested that the plaintiff be required to provide security for the legal costs, which the court ordered. The plaintiff appealed against this decision to the Federal Tribunal, invoking his status as a refugee within the meaning of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.Considerations
The Federal Tribunal freely examines the application of international treaties, in particular the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. It considers that the plaintiff meets the conditions to be recognized as a refugee within the meaning of this convention, either because he was considered as such by the…