The case concerned an Ivorian national who applied for asylum in Germany on 15 February 2023. After the conduction of a Dublin procedure which resulted in Italy’s responsibility under the Dublin III Regulation, the BAMF rejected the asylum application as inadmissible and ordered deportation to Italy pursuant to Section 34a(1) sentence 1 alternative 2 of the Asylum Act with decision of 28 August 2023. On 31 August 2023, the applicant appealed against this decision before the Regional Administrative Court of Würzburg and applied for the suspensive effect of the action pursuant to Section 80(5) of the Administrative Procedure Code.
The Regional Administrative Court of Würzburg referred to the decision CJEU, Bashar Ibrahim et.al. v Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Joined Cases C‑297/17, C‑318/17, C‑319/17 and C‑438/17, ECLI:EU:C:2019:219, 19 March 2019, and stated that based on the principle of mutual trust in the CEAS, the required high threshold for the determination of systemic deficiencies was only reached if the person concerned was in a situation of extreme material hardship, which did not allow them to satisfy their most basic needs, such as in particular to feed themselves, wash themselves and find accommodation, resulting into a violation of Article 3 ECHR and Article 4 of the EU Charter.
The court held that a mere inferior economic or social position was not sufficient for the assumption of inhuman treatment and referred in this regard to CJEU N.S. (Afghanistan) and others v Refugee Applications Commissioner, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (United Kingdom), Joined cases C-411/10 and C-493/10, ECLI:EU:C:2011:865, 21 December 2011.
The Regional Administrative Court of Würzburg considered that the Italian government launched a special programme (Relaunch Decree) in spring 2020, which allowed migrants without international protection to be granted a work and residence permit in Italy. The court held that even though the working conditions in many workplaces were bad, asylum seekers and people entitled to international protection had free access to the labor market already a few weeks after registration. Furthermore, the Regional Administrative Court of Würzburg referred to ECtHR, M.T. (Eritrea) v the Netherlands, no. 46595/19, 23 March 2021 and stated that even in cases of special vulnerabilities, the asylum conditions in Italy were in line with the special protection of asylum seekers with specific needs and extreme vulnerability as set out in the Tarakhel v Switzerland judgement of ECtHR, application no. 29217/12, 4 November 2014. Italy had further turned away from the restrictions imposed by the Salvini Decree and returned to the Italian two-stage reception system for applicants for international protection.
Based on the above, the Regional Administrative Court of Würzburg decided that according to the current country information on the situation in Italy, healthy and employable people were able to support themselves through legal work and satisfy their most basic needs. The court decided that it could not be assumed that the Italian asylum system and the reception conditions suffered from systemic deficiencies and that therefore Dublin returnees would not be threatened with inhuman or degrading treatment pursuant to Article 4 of the EU Charter.