The case is registered under C-489/24 Safita

The case concerned the appeal lodged by the applicant, a Syrian national, against the failure to take a decision on time by the State Secretary on his asylum application which was submitted on 17 February 2023. The Court of the Hague seated in Amsterdam rejected the appeal as inadmissible because the decision period for this application was lawfully extended by nine months and the applicant submitted the notice of default too early of 24 August 2023.

The court ruled at the same time that the policy WBV 2023/3, according to which the State Secretary extended the processing period, cannot be applied to asylum applications submitted after 26 June 2023 because the duration of that extension is limited to nine months after the entry into force of WBV 2022/22. The court noted that the State Secretary was allowed to exercise the power in Article 31(3) third sentence and under b, of the recast APD to extend the decision period by nine months with WBV 2022/22 due to an increased number of asylum applications and increased backlog, resulting into the State Secretary not being able to process application within 6 months. In a judgment of 12 December 2023, the court considered that the State Secretary was allowed to exercise that power again, with WBV 2023/3, because the situation did not change. However, the State Secretary was only allowed to extend the decision period for the asylum applications to be submitted up to and including 26 June 2023 and therefore not for all asylum applications submitted in 2023.

The State Secretary appealed against the Court of the Hague decision because it had an interest with regard to the court's judgment that WBV 2023/3 should not be applied to all asylum applications submitted after 26 June 2023. The outcome of the case is relevant for the State Secretary also because of several appeals pending on the question of whether the State Secretary was allowed to extend the decision period again with WBV 2023/3.

The Council of State noted that a referral with similar questions for preliminary ruling was already submitted to the CJEU on 8 November 2023 in case C-662/2023 and submitted, in addition to those questions, the following questions for a preliminary ruling, registered under C-489/24:

1. May the determining authority apply point (b) of the third subparagraph of Article 31(3) of the Asylum Procedures Directive repeatedly and consecutively?

2. If Question 1 is answered in the affirmative:

a. Under what conditions may the determining authority apply point (b) of the third subparagraph of Article 31(3) of the Asylum Procedures Directive repeatedly and consecutively, and is the total duration of the period over which the determining authority may apply that provision repeatedly and consecutively subject to any restrictions?

b. In answering the question whether the determining authority was permitted to extend the time limit for making its decision following, and consecutive to, a previous decree extending that time limit, to what extent can or must the court take account of the increase in the number of asylum applications, including relative to the period preceding the previous decree extending the time limit, and the determining authority's efforts (if any) to improve the shortfall in its decision-making capacity in order to ensure – against the backdrop of Article 4(1) of the Asylum Procedures Directive – an adequate and complete examination of asylum applications?

The request was submitted under the accelerated procedure and to join this case to the case C-662/2023.