A Ukrainian national travelled from Ukraine to Poland in February 2022 and allegedly signed the papers presented to him by Polish authorities after crossing the border, following advice from a friend. He then applied for temporary protection in Czechia, but the Ministry of the Interior rejected his application as inadmissible without a substantive review, on grounds that he had already been granted a temporary protection, and a residence permit in another Member State. 

The applicant appealed before the Prague Municipal Court, contending that he was not aware of having requested temporary protection in Poland. He also mentioned that he was recognised as disabled in Ukraine, for being deaf-mute. By decision of 17 December 2024, the court upheld the applicant's appeal and found that preventing the submission of a request for temporary protection could amount to unlawful interference with the applicant's rights. It then noted that Sections 5(1)(d) and (2) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll, according to which the Ministry of the Interior rejected the applicant's application without a substantive review, conflicted with EU law, because it infringed the right to an effective remedy before a court under Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the right to appeal against exclusion from temporary protection pursuant to Article 29 of the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD). The court emphasised that Article 28 of the TPD does not exclude a person from temporary protection on the grounds that such protection has already been granted in another Member State. The Ministry of the Interior appealed the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court, arguing that Sections 5(1)(d) and (2) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll. were compatible with EU law. It contended that Article 28 of the TPD was not applicable to the case, that the processing of applications by individuals already benefiting from temporary protection in another Member State was governed exclusively by national legislation, and that Council Implementing Decision No. 2022/382 did not confer a right to move freely between Member States and apply for temporary protection until a preferred country is found. 

On the exclusion from judicial review of an inadmissible decision concerning a request for temporary protection under Section 5(2) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll, the Supreme Administrative Court cited the CJEU judgment A.N. v Ministerstvo vnitra (C-753/23, 27 February 2025) and ruled that exclusion from judicial review was incompatible with EU law, as it unlawfully denied the right to an effective remedy.

The court then considered whether the inadmissibility of an application for temporary protection, due to it being submitted by an individual who was granted temporary protection in another Member State under Section 5(1)(d) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll., was compatible with EU law.  

The court also examined whether EU law grants individuals under temporary protection the right to choose the Member State in which they will exercise the rights conferred by the TPD, and whether this includes a right to secondary relocation to another Member State. The court agreed with the Ministry of the Interior that the TPD does not, in itself, grant individuals under temporary protection the right to choose their host Member State. The court noted that Article 25 of the TPD grants Member States the discretion to reach mutual agreements under which they will receive beneficiaries of temporary protection, and relocation is permitted under Article 26 and is carried out at the request of the Member States. The court then underlined that the impossibility of changing the host Member State based on the will of the beneficiary of the TPD is provided under Article 11, which states that a Member State should take back a beneficiary of temporary protection if the beneficiary stays on or attempts to enter the territory of another Member State without authorisation. But with respect to temporary protection granted to Ukrainian nationals, the court highlighted that, in Council Implementing Decision No. 2022/382, Member States explicitly declared their intention not to apply Article 11 of the TPD. The court noted that Member States considered that Ukrainian nationals have the right to move freely within the Union under the 90-day visa-free travel period, and within this timeframe, they may freely choose the Member State in which they wish to enjoy the rights associated with temporary protection. The court found that such agreement between Member States to exclude Article 11 provided the right for beneficiaries of temporary protection to move to another Member State and be issued a residence permit. It also underlined that the European Commission, in its document with answers to frequently asked questions on the TPD, stated that when a person relocates to another Member State, the second Member State must grant the applicant all rights deriving from temporary protection. Moreover, in its Operational guidelines for the implementation of Council Implementing Decision 2022/382 (OJ C 126I), the European Commission affirmed that if a person enjoying temporary protection “moves to another Member State where they receive another residence permit under temporary protection, the first issued residence permit and the rights arising from it must be terminated”. 

The Supreme Administrative Court acknowledged that rights derived from temporary protection cannot be enjoyed in more than one Member State simultaneously, and therefore a new residence permit under the TPD may be issued only provided that the previous residence permit has expired. The court underlined that if the applicant insists on relocating their residence to Czechia, the authority must assess whether the residence permit previously issued in the first host Member State will expire under the law of that state, with provisions analogous to Section 5(8)(b) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll. If the Member State does not contain provisions analogous to Section 5(8)(b) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll, it is the applicant who must take steps to terminate their residence permit in that Member State, and only if they fail to provide proof of this, national authorities can reject the application. The court emphasised that, if the residence permit is not revoked due to inaction of the authorities of the first state, such inaction cannot be held against the beneficiary of temporary protection. 

Considering the above, the Supreme Administrative Court found the Ministry of the Interior's appeal unfounded. It concluded that the Czech legal provision on the inadmissibility of applications for temporary protection under Section 5(1)(d) of Act No. 65/2022 Coll. was incompatible with the EU law. It then stressed that the Ministry of the Interior cannot reject residence permit applications submitted by Ukrainian nationals, beneficiaries of temporary protection in the EU solely on the ground that they were previously granted such protection in another Member State. The Supreme Administrative Court ordered the Ministry to restore the situation of the applicant by allowing the registration of his request for temporary protection and its processing in view of the findings in this judgment.