The applicant filed an application for a temporary asylum residence permit in the Netherlands, based on the fact that his father, who he claims is dependent on him due to diabetes, a hernia and psychosomatic stress symptoms, was granted an asylum residence permit by the Netherlands on 9 June 2022.

On 14 November 2022, the State Secretary for Justice and Security decided not to process the applicant’s request for a temporary asylum residence permit. The decision was taken in accordance with Dutch law transposing the Dublin III Regulation, which states that no application for a temporary asylum residence permit can be processed if it established under said Regulation that another country is responsible for it. In this case, the Netherlands submitted a request to take charge to Italy and Italy did not reply with the set timeframe, which is tantamount to accepting the request. Subsequently, the applicant appealed against this decision.

The Court of The Hague first examined the relation of dependence between the applicant and his father. According to the Dublin III Regulation, the applicant is responsible for producing evidence supporting their claim regarding the dependence of a relative, including medical documents or other objective documents. In this case, the applicant produced a letter from his landlord, who explains that the son acts as a caregiver for his father and that it would be better if they could keep on living together.
Whilst the Court of The Hague accepted to consider this letter, it noted the medical information it contains is not supported by any medical document and that the medical record of the applicant’s father does not contain evidence of diagnosis or treatment for the conditions mentioned in the procedure. Moreover, the applicant failed to explain the absence of such evidence. Therefore, the Court of the Hague considered that the relationship of dependence between the applicant and his father cannot be established in the sense of the Dublin III Regulation.

The Court of the Hague then examined the issue of the request to take charge. The applicant claimed that the decision of State Secretary for Justice and Security of 14 November 2022 cannot be upheld because the situation in Italy has deteriorated and is likely to worsen. To support this claim, the applicant produced several media articles concerning the condition of asylum seekers in Italy, both before and after the far-right party ‘Fratelli d'Italia’ won the parliamentary elections. Besides, the applicant pointed out that the State Secretary for Justice and Security wrongly assumed he had not filed an application for asylum in Italy. He also highlighted two other documents to support his claim: first, an AIDA Country report on Italy which, in his view, demonstrates that Dublin returnees who first applied in Italy are consistently expelled to their country of origin without access to the asylum procedure; second, a circular from the Italian government asking Member States to suspend Dublin transfers to Italy due to unavailability of reception facilities, which he argues means the principle of mutual trust cannot be relied on.
The Court of The Hague noted that in both its own and ECtHR case law, it was deemed decisive that new legislation was adopted in Italy providing additional safeguards and reversing some of the austerity measures of the ‘Salvini decree’. It also found the applicant’s argument that harsher legislation could be passed by the new Government largely speculative and concluded that the articles brought forward could not be used as a basis to overrun the aforementioned case law. The court applied the same reasoning to the applicant’s arguments that he would be detained and deported back to Syria if he was to be transferred to Italy: the AIDA report shows that people whose asylum application was rejected in Italy, left the country and then returned were indeed imprisoned, however it is not the case of the applicant who stated himself in the procedure that he did not apply for asylum in Italy.
Regarding the Italian Government’s circular requesting that transfers be suspended due to unavailability of reception centres, the court stated that it must be regarded as a temporary obstacle to actual transfers rather than as an indication of structural and fundamental shortcomings in the Italian reception facilities. Once more, the court considered that the applicant’s arguments that the principle of mutual trust could not be relied on were insufficient to rebut the presumption of mutual trust.

The court therefore declared the applicant’s appeal unfounded.