The applicant submitted a subsequent application following the rejection of his initial one and this subsequent application was rejected as inadmissible by a decision of 18 May 2018 of the CGRS. The applicant had not specified an address for service in Belgium, under national law, thus notice of the contested decision was sent to him, on Tuesday 22 May 2018, by registered post to the head office of the CGRS. The Belgian law provides a time limit of 10 days to bring an action against that decision, deadline starting to run on the third working day following that when the letter was delivered to the postal services, namely Friday 25 May 2018. Since the day when that period expired was a Sunday, the expiry date was postponed to Monday 4 June 2018. The applicant attended at the head office of the CGRS on 30 May 2018 and, on that date, acknowledged receipt of the registered letter concerning the contested decision. He further appealed the inadmissible decision on 7 June 2018 and the appeal was rejected by judgment of 9 October 2018 as time-barred. The applicant brought further an appeal on points of law before the Council of State which decided to stay the proceedings and asked the CJEU the following:

‘Must Article 46 of [Directive 2013/32], by virtue of which applicants must be given a right to an effective remedy against decisions “taken on their application for international protection”, and Article 47 of [the Charter] be interpreted as precluding a rule of national procedure, such as Article 39/57 of [the Law of 15 December 1980], read in conjunction with Article 51/2, point 5° of the first subparagraph of Article 57/6(3) and Article 57/6/2(1) of that law, establishing a time limit of 10 “calendar” days, starting from the service of the administrative decision, for bringing an action against a decision declaring a subsequent application for international protection lodged by a third-country national to be inadmissible, in particular where that service was made at the head office of [the CGRS] where the applicant is “deemed” by law to have specified a place for service?’

The CJEU ruled that 'Article 46 of Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection, read in the light of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State which provides that proceedings challenging a decision declaring a subsequent application for international protection to be inadmissible are subject to a limitation period of 10 days, including public holidays, as from the date of service of such decision, even where, when the applicant concerned has not specified an address for service in that Member State, that service is made at the head office of the national authority responsible for the examination of those applications, provided that (i) those applicants are informed that, where they have not specified an address for service for the purposes of notification of the decision concerning their application, they will be deemed to have specified an address for service for those purposes at the head office of that national authority; (ii) the conditions for access of those applicants to that head office do not render receipt by those applicants of the decisions concerning them excessively difficult, (iii) genuine access to the procedural safeguards granted to applicants for international protection by EU law is ensured within such a period, and (iv) the principle of equivalence is respected. It is for the referring court to determine whether the national legislation at issue in the main proceedings meets those requirements.'