The case concerns requests for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 27(1) and Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation made in two proceedings (the first between the Dutch State Secretary for Justice and Security and two third-country nationals, B and F and the second between K, a third-country national, and the State Secretary). In the national procedure, the State Secretary adopted decisions to reject without examination the applications for international protection lodged by B and K and to transfer them to Italy and, to hold F in detention for the purpose of removal.

The Dutch Council of State suspended the proceedings and referred the following questions for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU:

“(1) Must Article 29 of [the Dublin III Regulation] be interpreted as meaning that a current transfer time limit, as referred to in Article 29(1) and (2), restarts at the point at which the foreign national, after having obstructed the transfer by a Member State by absconding, lodges a fresh application for international protection in another (in this case, a third) Member State?”

“(2) If Question 1 must be answered in the negative, must Article 27(1) of [the Dublin III Regulation], read in the light of recital 19 of that regulation, be interpreted as precluding an applicant for international protection from successfully arguing, in the context of an appeal against a transfer decision, that that transfer cannot proceed because the time limit for a previously agreed transfer between two Member States (in this case, [the French Republic] and [the Republic of] Austria) has expired, with the result that the time limit within which the Netherlands can effect the transfer has expired?”

With regard to the first question, the CJEU held that “where a time limit for the transfer of a third-country national between a requested Member State and a first requesting Member State has started to run, responsibility for examining the application for international protection lodged by that person is transferred to that requesting Member State by reason of the expiry of that time limit, even though that person, in the meantime, lodged a new application for international protection in a third Member State, which led to the acceptance by the requested Member State of a take back request made by that third Member State, provided that that responsibility has not been transferred to that third Member State by reason of the expiry of one of the time limits provided for in Article 23.” Furthermore, “following such a transfer of responsibility, the Member State in which that person is present cannot transfer him or her to a Member State other than the newly responsible Member State, but it may, however, within the time limits laid down in Article 23(2) of that regulation, submit a take back request to the latter Member State.”

With regard to the second question, the CJEU held that “a third-country national who has lodged an application for international protection successively in three Member States must be able, in the third of those Member States, to have available an effective and rapid remedy which enables him or her to rely on the fact that responsibility for examining his or her application was transferred, by reason of the expiry of the time limit for transfer provided for in Article 29(1) and (2) of that regulation, to the second of those Member States.”