The case concerned a request made by Raad van State (Council of State) in the course of proceedings between the Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (State Secretary for Justice and Security, Netherlands) and S.S., N.Z. and S.S., concerning the rejection of their asylum applications as inadmissible and the decision to transfer them to Italy under the Dublin III Regulation. The issue at stake was based on the question of compatibility of national legislation with Articles 27(3) and Article 29(1) and (2) of the Dublin III Regulation. The national legislation provided that the transfer time limit pursuant to Article 29 of the Dublin III Regulation was suspended by 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.

The court held that even though the effectiveness of an appeal against a rejection of a residence permit as a victim of trafficking in human beings did not require that a previously adopted transfer decision was suspended until this appeal was decided, the Member States were free to adopt more favorable decision as set out in Article 4 of the Dublin III Regulation. Therefore, the CJEU decided that the Dublin III Regulation did not preclude a Member State from exercising its discretion to improve protection by giving suspensive effect to an appeal against a rejection of a residence permit for victims of trafficking, in order to prevent the enforcement of a previously issued transfer decision until the final decision of the appeal procedure.

However, the CJEU decided that such an appeal, which was not directly directed against the transfer decision, could not be regarded as an appeal within the meaning of Article 27(3) or (4) of the Dublin III Regulation. Therefore, an appeal against the rejection of a residence permit for victims of trafficking could not suspend the transfer deadline pursuant to Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation, even if the lodging of such an appeal entitled the third county national to remain in the territory of the Member State under national law. 

In the light of the objective of the EU legislator of rapidly processing applications for international protection and the therefore regulated strict time limits for the take charge and take back procedure, the CJEU decided that a Member State did not have the discretion to nationally regulate the suspension or interruption of the transfer time limit, even if could suspend the implementation of a transfer decision after national law.