EDAL case summaries

The Administrative Court judged that a full and rigorous examination of the consequences of transferring the applicant back to Italy is required, given the delicate and evolving situation in the country. As this was not done the prefecture’s decision to refuse to examine the asylum application and send her back to Italy was annulled. The case was remitted to the prefecture for re-examination. 

The French authorities shall use the sovereignty clause in the Dublin Regulation, under the judge’s supervision, when the rules that determine responsibility of a member state for the asylum procedure may infringe on international and national rights guaranteed to refugees and applicants for asylum. In this case a transfer order to Hungary, where the applicant had on two occasions been detained in unsuitable conditions, was held to be an unlawful infringement of the applicant’s right to asylum.

If a Member Sate has issued a visa that enables an applicant to enter its territory and that visa has expired less than six months previously, that Member State is responsible for the examination of the applicant’s asylum application as long as the applicant has not left the territory of the EU Member States. In this case, the visa issued by Slovenian authorities expired only 5 days before the asylum application was made in France. Slovenia was, therefore, the responsible Member State under Art 9(4) Dublin Regulation.

In this case, the Council of State held that the separation of a family, which results from the implementation of the Dublin Regulation, is unlawful if it has not been ascertained that the family could be reunited in one of the two countries concerned under the Regulation.