The applicant fled his home country owing to persecution and applied for political asylum in Lithuania on 17 October 2022. The Migration Department failed to assess the application within the time limits provided by law, and the applicant filed a complaint with the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court (VAAT) as, according to Article 81 of the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens, an application for asylum must be examined as soon as possible, but no later than within 6 months of the date of submission of the asylum application, without providing for an extension of the time limits for examining the asylum application.

The Migration Department stated that it was unable to examine the asylum application owing to staff shortages, an unsuccessful search for additional employees, and insufficient internal resources. It also added that the workload had been exacerbated by the influx of migrants from Belarus, as well as an increase in the number of Ukrainian applications as a result of Russian military invasion. According to the Migration Department, the number of people who requested asylum in Lithuania in 2020 was 321, compared to 4259 requests in 2021, 1051 applications in 2022, and by April 2023, 178 asylum seekers had already applied.

The Migration Department informed the applicant in writing in April 2023 that the assessment of his asylum application would take more than 6 months and that a decision on the application would hopefully be made in the third quarter of 2023.

The VAAT noted that the vaguely defined period does not guarantee legal certainty and causes great uncertainty for the applicant about his future. The VAAT further pointed out that Article 31 of the recast Asylum Procedures Directive provides that Member States guarantee that the examination procedure is completed within 6 months of the date the application was made. The court noted that the Directive provision allowing for the possibility of extending that period was inapplicable since the decision did not explain the grounds for extending the deadline provided for under the Directive.

In view of the above, the VAAT upheld the appeal and ordered the Migration Department to make a decision on the applicant's asylum application as soon as possible. Considering that the application should have already been examined, the court set a deadline of 1 month from the date of the court decision's entry into force as an appropriate period for the decision on the applicant's asylum application.