Judgment of the Court First Chamber of 22 September 2022, Bundesrepublik Deutschland Administrative suspension of the transfer decision, C-245/21 and C-248/21

• Date: 22 September 2022
• Year: 2022

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the information used by the competent authority in conducting its assessment may in part be

provided by specialist bodies responsible for national security, the scope of such information and its

relevance to the decision to be taken must be freely assessed by that authority. The latter cannot

therefore be required to rely on a non-reasoned opinion given by such bodies, based on an

assessment the factual basis of which has not been disclosed to that authority.

Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 22 September 2022, Bu ndesrepublik Deutschland

(Administrative suspension of the transfer decision), C-245/21 and C -248/21

Link to the full text of the judgment

Request for a preliminary ruling – Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 – Determination of the Member State

responsible for examining an application for international protection – Articles 27 and 29 – Transfer of the

person concerned to the Member State responsible for the examination of his or her request –

Suspension of the transfer due to the COVID-19 pandemic – Impossibility of carrying out the transfer –

Judicial protection – Consequences for the time limit for transfer

During 2019, LE, MA and PB applied for asylum in Germany. However, LE had previously lodged an

application for international protection in Italy and MA and PB had unlawfully entered the territory of

the latter Member State, where they had been registered as applicants for international protection.

Therefore, the competent German authority requested the Italian authorities to take back LE and to

take charge of MA and PB on the basis of the Dublin III Regulation.

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That authority subsequently

declared the asylum applications of the persons concerned inadmissible and ordered their

deportation to Italy.

In February 2020, the Italian authorities informed the German authorities that, due to the COVID-19

pandemic, transfers to and from Italy under the Dublin III Regulation would no longer take place. By

decisions adopted in March 2020 and April 2020, the competent German authority suspended, until

further notice, the imple mentation of the removal orders of the persons concerned pursuant, inter

alia, to that regulation,

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on the grounds that, in view of the development of the Covid-19 pandemic,

the implementation of such transfers was not possible.

In judgments delivered in June 2020 and August 2020, the Verwaltungsgericht (Administrative Court,

Germany) annulled the decisions by which the authority had declared the asylum applications of the

persons concerned inadmissible and ordered their deportation. That court found that, even if Italy

had been responsible for the examination of the asylum applications of the persons concerned, that

responsibility had been transferred to Germany due to the expiry of the time limit for transfer

provided for in the Dublin III Regulation,

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since the expiry of that time limit had not been interrupted

by the abovementioned suspension decisions.

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Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanis ms for

determining the Member State re sponsible for examining an application for i nternational protection lodged in one of the Member States by

a third-country national or a stateless person (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 31, ‘ the Dublin III Regulation’).

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Those decisions were adopted on the basis of Article 27(4) of the Dublin III Regulation, according to wh ich Member States may provide that

the competent authorities may decide, actin g ex officio, to suspend the implementation of the transfer decision pending the outcome of the

appeal or review.

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See Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation, according to which the transfer of the applicant from the requesting Member State to the

Member State responsible is to be carried out in accordance with the national law of the requesting Member State, after consu ltation

between the Member States concerned, as soon as practically possible, and at the latest within six months of acceptance of the request by

another Member State to take charg e of or to take back the person conc erned or of the final decision on an appeal or review where there is

a suspensive effect in accordance with Article 27(3).