Court of Justice of the European Union Rules Dublin III Regulation Allows Member States to Send Applicant for International Protection to Safe Third Country (March 17, 2016) [1]
On March 16, 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled [3] (judgment not available in English) that the Dublin III Regulation [4] allows a member state to send an applicant for international protection to a safe third country, regardless of which member state is responsible for processing the application. According to the press release [5], Shiraz Baig Mirza is a Pakistani citizen who entered Hungary illegally in 2015 and filed his first application for international protection there. While his claim was being evaluated, he left the place of residence he had been assigned, and the Hungarian authorities suspended his application, finding that Mirza had implicitly withdrawn his petition. Mirza was taken in by the Czech authorities and transferred back to Hungary where he filed a second application. Hungarian authorities “rejected that application as inadmissible, [noting] that, for the applicant, Serbia had to be classified as a safe third country.” Mirza filed suit with in the Hungarian Administrative Court, which asked the European Court of Justice “whether Mr Mirza may be sent to a safe third country despite the fact that the Czech authorities appear not to have been informed of the Hungarian legislation and practice consisting in transferring applicants for international protection to safe third countries.” The Court ruled that “the right to send an applicant for international protection to a safe third country may also be exercised by a Member State after [it] has admitted to being responsible, pursuant to the Dublin III Regulation and within the context of the take back procedure, for examining an application for international protection submitted by an applicant who left that Member State before a decision regarding the substance of his first application for international protection has been taken.” The Court further found that there is no requirement under EU law mandating the exchange of information regarding domestic laws and administrative practice between the transferring and receiving member states. Finally, the Court ruled that the applicant’s right to obtain a final decision “does not deprive the Member State responsible of the possibility of declaring the application inadmissible or require it to resume the examination of the application at a specific procedural stage.”