A Turkish national applied for international protection in Switzerland. The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) found in Eurodac that he had previously lodged an application in Croatia. The SEM decided, after the take back request to Croatia was accepted, to transfer him to Croatia.

The applicant appealed the decision and alleged that the Croatian authorities had not given him a possibility to file an application for asylum, and that they had deprived him of food and water for several hours and threated to return him to Bosnia. In addition, the Croatian authorities refused to return his bag containing his passport and identity card. He also submitted a report from Human Rights Watch of 3 May 2023, where shortcomings are mentioned in the Croatian asylum system and alleged violence of authorities against asylum seekers.

The court cited an earlier judgment,  A. v State Secretariat for Migration (Staatssekretariat für Migration – SEM), E-1488/2020, 22 March 2023, and stated that there had so far been no report or documented case indicating that persons transferred to Croatia in the context of a Dublin procedure had been unlawfully expelled. Consequently, the previous judgment conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that persons returned would be illegally deported from Croatia, without access to the asylum procedure is still valid. In the present case the Federal Administrative Court considered less likely that this could happen systematically. Furthermore, the court deemed that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the applicant would be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment upon his return to Croatia. The court thus found no reason to annul the transfer, nor to apply Article 17 of the Dublin III Regulation to make Switzerland responsible for the application, even after considering the applicant’s health and his relationship to his partner.