The applicant lodged an application for asylum in Italy in 2016, which the Italian authorities rejected. In 2019, he submitted an asylum application in the Netherlands. The Secretary of State submitted a take back request to Italy, which was implicitly accepted. The Secretary of State decided not to examine the asylum application and to transfer the applicant to Italy, since Italy was responsible for examining the application under the Dublin III Regulation. The transfer period would in principle expire on 20 May 2020.

The applicant appealed against this decision to the District Court of the Hague and asked the court to order, as a preliminary injunction, that the Secretary of State should not transfer him until the court has ruled on the appeal. The applicant later withdrew this request for a preliminary injunction. The court ruled in favour of the applicant, and the State Secretary appealed against this judgment in September 2020 to the Council of State. The State Secretary also asked the Council of State for a preliminary injunction to avoid enforcement of the court's decision until the Council of State had ruled on the appeal. The Council of State granted this preliminary injunction.

While the appeal was pending in court, the applicant filed a report of human trafficking and an application for a fixed-term residence permit as a victim of human trafficking. The State Secretary rejected this application. The applicant contested the decision, but the State Secretary found the objection unfounded.

The applicant claimed that the time limit for transfer to Italy had by now expired. The State Secretary argued to the contrary that the time limit had not expired, since it was suspended by the objection made by the applicant in the proceedings against the rejection of his application for a residence permit as a victim of trafficking in human beings. Finding arguments for both sides, the Council of State decided to stay the proceedings and refer questions to the CJEU.

The Council of State stayed the proceedings and referred questions to the CJEU on two occasions. By judgments of S.S., N.Z., S.S., v State Secretary for Justice and Security (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), C-338/21, and  E.N., S.S., J.Y. v State Secretary for Justice and Security (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), C‑556/21, the Court answered the questions referred by the Council of State.

The question in the first case, C-338/21, was whether Article 29(1) and (2) of the Dublin III Regulation, read in conjunction with Article 27(3), must be interpreted as precluding national legislation which provides that the submission of a request for review of a decision refusing to grant a third-country national a residence permit as a victim of trafficking in human beings entails, first, suspension of the implementation of a previously adopted transfer decision concerning that third-country national and, secondly, the suspension or interruption of the period for the transfer of that third-country national.

The CJEU responded that the provisions in question must be interpreted as:

• not precluding national legislation which provides that the submission of a request for review of a decision refusing to grant a third-country national a residence permit as a victim of trafficking in human beings entails the suspension of the implementation of a previously adopted transfer decision concerning that third-country national, but as

• precluding national legislation which provides that such a suspension entails the suspension or interruption of the period for the transfer of that third-country national.

Based on the CJEU judgment, the Council of State found that the policy of the Secretary of State, laid down in paragraph B1/7.2 of the Vc 2000, from which it followed that the objection to a rejection of an application for a residence permit as a victim of trafficking in human beings also suspended the time limit for the implementation of the transfer decision, was contrary to the Dublin III Regulation. It held that the Secretary of State may suspend the implementation of a transfer decision as long as there is an objection and appeal against the refusal of residence due to human trafficking. However, that does not mean that it will also lead to the suspension of the transfer period, since that would undermine the achievement of the objective and thus the effectiveness of the Dublin III Regulation. It was noted that the Secretary of State must adjust their policy on this point.

The Council of State determined thus that the lower court was correct to consider that the objection to the decision of 6 April 2020, not to grant the applicant a residence permit as a victim of human trafficking, did not suspend the transfer period.

Furthermore, the State Secretary referred to the judgment of the CJEU of 30 March 2023,  E.N., S.S., J.Y. v State Secretary for Justice and Security (Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid), C‑556/21. The State Secretary argued that it followed from the judgment that an interim appeal granted by the Council of State could suspend the transfer time limit, provided that the implementation of the transfer decision had been suspended during the examination of the appeal at first instance, pursuant to Article 27(3) and (4) of the Dublin Regulation. The State Secretary further argued that when the applicant applied for a preliminary injunction on appeal on 8 February 2020, that request resulted in the transfer period being suspended in accordance with Article 27(6) of the Dublin III Regulation and starting to run again at the time of withdrawal of the application for interim relief on 16 April 2020, and that the interim injunction granted by the Council of State in November 2020 again suspended the transfer time limit. According to the Secretary of State, this suspension does not require that the court also grant the request for a preliminary injunction.

The Council of State stated that even if the Council were to follow the Secretary of State's argument, to which the Council of State disagreed, that could not lead to the suspension of the transfer period. In that situation, the transfer period would have been suspended by the applicant’s application for interim relief on 8 February 2020 and the six-month period would have resumed or started running again on the day following the withdrawal of the application for interim relief on 6 April 2020. The transfer period would then have expired on 7 October 2020 at the latest. By November 16, 2020, the date the Council of State granted the Secretary of State's request, the transfer period had already expired. The Council noted that whatever the case may be, the transfer period had expired, and the Netherlands had become responsible for examining the applicant's asylum application.

The Council of State thus rejected the appeal of the State Secretary in its entirety.