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On 19 March 2026, the Administrative Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki published a decision referring a preliminary question to the CJEU regarding the interpretation of Article 46 of Directive 2013/32 (the Asylum Procedures Directive – APD). The case concerned an application for annulment lodged by a Guinean national against a decision of the Appeals Committee which had rejected his asylum appeal as inadmissible due to late submission.

The applicant applied for international protection in 2018, but his application was rejected at first instance. He promptly requested free legal aid and a lawyer was appointed, however, his appeal was lodged after the statutory deadline, and the Appeals Committee dismissed the appeal as inadmissible. Before the Administrative Court, the applicant argued that the late submission was not attributable to him but to failures in the provision of legal aid and claimed he was deprived of an effective remedy, in breach of Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court reviewed the EU and national legal framework and noted that while national law provides strict deadlines for appeals, these must not render the exercise of the right to an effective remedy impossible or excessively difficult. It also acknowledged the established national case law that, in principle, applicants bear the consequences of their lawyer’s errors, unless force majeure is established. According to domestic case law, force majeure does not include negligence on behalf of an appointed lawyer that results in missed deadlines. However, the Court identified a legal uncertainty as to whether this approach is compatible with EU law in situations where the legal representative is appointed by the State and the applicant has acted diligently.

Considering the importance of the right to an effective remedy and the potential consequences for asylum seekers, including the risk of refoulement, the Court decided to refer the following preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the European Union:

“Is it compatible with Article 46 of Directive 2013/32/EU and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union to reject, pursuant to Articles 92(1)(a) and 95(8) of Law 4636/2019, an administrative appeal against a first-instance decision rejecting an application for international protection, due to late submission? Such rejection occurs in a situation where the requirements laid down in Article 71 of Law 4636/2019 (Articles 19 to 23 of the Directive) and in the implementing Ministerial Decision No 3449/2021 have not been complied with, namely the obligation to inform the appellant of the lawyer appointed to their case, to ensure communication between the appellant and that lawyer, and where the latter has not handled the case with the required diligence under Article 5 of that Ministerial Decision.  More specifically, it concerns  a case where, although the appellant requested within the statutory time limit the appointment of a lawyer by the Asylum Service to assist them and demonstrated due diligence in pursuing their case and in taking the necessary steps for the proper lodging of the appeal, the lawyer appointed by the Service failed to communicate with the applicant and to lodge the appeal in due time, without any proven case of force majeure affecting the lawyer?”

Unofficial translation by the EWLU team
EWLU team would like to thank Equal Legal Aid for bringing this case to our attention