CJEU Joined Cases C-185/24 and C-189/24 / Judgment
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CJEU Joined Cases C-185/24 and C-189/24 / Judgment
Key facts of the case:
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Asylum policy – Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 – Article 3(2) – Transfer of the asylum seeker to the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection – Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Risk of inhuman or degrading treatment – Evidence and standard of proof of the real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, resulting from systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants in the Member State responsible – Suspension, by the Member State responsible, of the taking charge of and taking back of asylum seekers
Outcome of the case:
On those grounds the Court (Second Chamber) hereby rules:
The second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person must be interpreted as meaning that it may not be found that there are, in the Member State designated as responsible under the criteria set out in Chapter III of that regulation, systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants for international protection, resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, on the sole ground that that Member State has unilaterally suspended the taking charge of and taking back of those applicants. Such a finding may only be made following an analysis of all the relevant data on the basis of information that is objective, reliable, specific and properly updated.
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Paragraphs referring to EU Charter
29. By its two questions, which it is appropriate to examine together, the referring court asks, in essence, whether the second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that it may be found that there are, in the Member State designated as responsible under the criteria set out in Chapter III of that regulation, systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants for international protection, resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter, on the sole ground that that Member State has unilaterally suspended the taking charge of and taking back of those applicants. If not, that court asks on the basis of which information it may establish the existence of such flaws in such a case.
30. It must be borne in mind that EU law is based on the fundamental premiss that each Member State shares with all the other Member States, and recognises that they share with it, a set of common values on which the European Union is founded, as stated in Article 2 TEU. That premiss implies and justifies the existence of mutual trust between the Member States that those values will be recognised, and therefore that the EU law that implements them will be respected, and that their national legal systems are capable of providing equivalent and effective protection of the fundamental rights recognised by the Charter, including Articles 1 and 4 of the Charter, which enshrine one of the fundamental values of the European Union and its Member States, namely human dignity, which includes, inter alia, the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment (see, to that effect, judgments of 19 March 2019, Jawo, C‑163/17, EU:C:2019:218, paragraph 80, and of 29 February 2024, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer), C‑392/22, EU:C:2024:195, paragraph 43 and the case-law cited).
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32. Accordingly, in the context of the Common European Asylum System, and in particular the Dublin III Regulation, it must be presumed that the treatment of applicants for international protection in all Member States complies with the requirements of the Charter, the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, signed in Geneva on 28 July 1951 (United Nations, Treaty Series, Vol. 189, p. 150, No 2545 (1954)), which entered into force on 22 April 1954 and was supplemented by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, concluded in New York on 31 January 1967 and entered into force on 4 October 1967, and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 (see, to that effect, judgments of 19 March 2019, Jawo, C‑163/17, EU:C:2019:218, paragraph 82 and the case-law cited, and of 29 February 2024, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer), C‑392/22, EU:C:2024:195, paragraph 45).
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34. Thus, the second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation provides that an applicant for international protection cannot be transferred to the Member State responsible for examining his or her application if there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be at risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter, because of systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants for international protection in that Member State (judgment of 29 February 2024, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer), C‑392/22, EU:C:2024:195, paragraph 47). In that situation, in accordance with the second and third subparagraphs of Article 3(2) of that regulation, the determining Member State becomes the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection if it finds, following examination of the criteria set out in Chapter III of that regulation, that the transfer cannot be made to any Member State designated on the basis of those criteria or to the first Member State in which the application was lodged (judgment of 19 March 2019, Jawo, C‑163/17, EU:C:2019:218, paragraph 86).
35. It unequivocally follows from the second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation that only ‘systemic flaws’, ‘resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the [Charter]’, make the transfer of an applicant for international protection to the responsible Member State impossible. That provision thus sets out two cumulative conditions (see, to that effect, judgment of 29 February 2024, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer), C‑392/22, EU:C:2024:195, paragraphs 57 and 58).
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38. The second condition, which relates to there being a risk of such treatment, is thus satisfied where those systemic flaws result in a risk, for the person concerned, of being exposed to treatment that is contrary to Article 4 of the Charter (see, to that effect, judgment of 29 February 2024, Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer), C‑392/22, EU:C:2024:195, paragraph 62).
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43. Accordingly, the fact that the Member State designated as responsible under the criteria established in Chapter III of the Dublin III Regulation has unilaterally suspended the taking charge of and taking back of applicants for international protection is not capable, in itself, of justifying the finding, pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of that regulation, of systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants for international protection in that Member State, resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter.
44. Consequently, even in such a case, it is for the court or tribunal hearing an action challenging a transfer decision to carry out an assessment of the existence of such systemic flaws and of the risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter in the circumstances specified by the case-law referred to in paragraphs 35 to 39 above.
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46. It follows from the case-law of the Court that the court or tribunal hearing an action challenging a transfer decision may, for the purposes of that assessment, take into account all available documents, such as, where appropriate, the regular and concordant reports of international non-governmental organisations bearing witness to practical difficulties in the implementation of the Common European Asylum System in the Member State concerned, documents issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as documents and exchanges of information in connection with the implementation of the system established by the Dublin III Regulation (see, by analogy, judgment of 21 December 2011, N.S. and Others, C‑411/10 and C‑493/10, EU:C:2011:865, paragraphs 90 and 91), so that it is in a position to determine the existence of such systemic flaws and of the risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter.
47. In the light of all the foregoing reasons, the answer to the questions referred is that the second subparagraph of Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation must be interpreted as meaning that:
– it may not be found that there are, in the Member State designated as responsible under the criteria set out in Chapter III of that regulation, systemic flaws in the asylum procedure and in the reception conditions for applicants for international protection, resulting in a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter, on the sole ground that that Member State has unilaterally suspended the taking charge of and taking back of those applicants;
– such a finding may only be made following an analysis of all the relevant data on the basis of information that is objective, reliable, specific and properly updated.
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Paragraphs referring to EU Charter (original language)