Case summaries

The CJEU found that national legislation cannot introduce a new inadmissibility ground for applications for international protection that is not already included in the list of inadmissibility grounds in Directive 2013/32. In addition, the CJEU ruled that the so-called “Stop Soros” law which aimed at restricting and criminalizing persons or organizations providing assistance to applicants for international protection also breached EU law.

The Court decides that the relevant point in time to assess the ‘minor’ status of a beneficiary of international protection under the Qualification Directive is the date on which the applicant makes an (informal) application for international protection.

The Court decides that the notion of ‘family member’ under the Qualification Directive does not require an actual resumption of family life between the parent who benefited international protection and the child. Furthermore, the rights of a family member to claim the benefits under the Qualification Directive persist after the beneficiary of subsidiary protection reaches the age of majority, for the duration of the period of validity of the residence permit granted to them.

New elements or findings which have arisen or have been presented by the applicant in subsequent applications can consist, on the one hand, of those which have arisen after the decision became final, and, on the other hand, of those which have not been presented by the applicant but have already existed during the first procedure.

Domestic provisions regarding the procedures of examining a subsequent application must be compliant with the provisions set out in the Asylum Procedures Directive and cannot foresee a limited period to file a subsequent application. Moreover, if Member States have no specific implementing provisions regarding the Asylum Procedures Directive, domestic legislation is not applicable to dismiss a subsequent application if new elements or findings already existed before the decision became final but where not presented by the applicant’s own fault.

Article 40(2) of the Asylum Procedures Directive does not distinguish between initial and subsequent applications for international protection. As such, Member States should not treat the assessment of evidence submitted in subsequent applications different from evidence submitted in a first application. Any document submitted by the applicant in support of his application for international protection must be considered, and the inability to authenticate that document cannot justify the exclusion of such a document from the examination.

National legislation that grants the possibility of rejecting an application made by a third-country national or a stateless person for international protection, whose previous application seeking refugee status in another Member State implementing the Dublin III Regulation had been rejected, is precluded under Article 33(2)(d) of Directive 2013/32 read in conjunction with Article 2(q) thereof. 

Article 27(1) of Dublin III Regulation read in the light of recital 19 thereof, and Article 47 of the Charter preclude national legislation that bars domestic courts from assessing an application for annulment of a Dublin transfer decision by considering circumstances that emerged after the transfer decision was adopted and which are decisive for the correct application of the regulation. However, such circumstances may not be considered if that legislation foresees a specific remedy with ex nunc review that can be exercised after the emergence of the new circumstances is not conditional on the person’s deprivation of liberty or on the imminent implementation of that decision.

The absence of food provision raised an issue of Article 3 in respect of the first applicant, given his state of total dependency on the Hungarian government during his stay at the Röszke transit zone. The physical conditions of the container in which the family stayed in, the unsuitable facilities for children, irregularities in the provision of medical services, and the prolonged stay in the area amounted to a violation of Article 3 in respect of the applicant mother and the children.

The family’s stay at the Röszke transit zone amounted to deprivation of liberty due to, inter alia, the lack of any domestic legal provisions fixing the maximum duration of the applicants’ stay, the excessive duration of the applicants’ stay and the conditions in the transit zone. Their deprivation of liberty was unlawful under Article 5 (1), as there was no strictly defined statutory basis for the applicants’ detention and no formal decision complete with reasons for detention had been issued by the Hungarian authorities.

Article 5 (4) was also violated because he applicants did not have avenue in which the lawfulness of their detention could have been decided promptly by a court.

When analysing if protection from UNRWA has ceased (Article 12(1)(a) Directive 2011/95), account must be taken of the possibility for the individual to concretely access effective protection in any of the other fields within UNRWA area of operations.

Assistance from the Agency must be considered as maintained when an individual has left UNRWA area of operations from a field where he couldn’t obtain effective protection, if the person had previously voluntarily left a field where he could access UNRWA’s assistance, even though he could reasonably foresee, according to the information available for him at the moment of departure, that he wouldn’t be able to receive effective protection from the Agency in the field he was travelling to, or return to the field of origin in the short term.

The reception conditions for beneficiaries of international protection in Bulgaria are such that they may face severe material deprivation due to “indifference” on the part of the authorities (cfr. CJEU, Ibrahim), potentially amounting to a violation of Article 3 ECHR / Article 4 CFREU.

When the State Secretary decides that a request for international protection is not admissible, because the applicants have refugee status in Bulgaria, it is not sufficient for him to refer to the principle of mutual trust between EU Member States and to the Council of State’s jurisprudence, but he is obliged to examine the applicant’ s individual circumstances and to obtain specific information and guarantees from the Bulgarian authorities.

The CJEU ruled that Articles 14 and 34 of the Recast Qualifications Directive must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which provides that a failure to comply with the obligation to give a personal interview to an international protection’s applicant, before a decision is adopted, would lead to that application to be inadmissible.

The CJEU further concluded that it could only be allowed if the legislation gives the opportunity to the international protection’s applicant, in the appeal procedure, to set out in person all of his or her arguments against the decision in a hearing which complies with the applicable conditions and fundamental guarantees, under Article 15 of that Directive. The last condition would be, according to the ruling of the CJEU, that those arguments are not capable of altering that decision.