The referral is registered before the CJEU under C-511/25.

A Russian national, officially born and registered as female, but who identifies as a man, of Jewish nationality, applied for international protection in the Czech Republic. Based on the Dublin III Regulation, the Ministry of the Interior determined that the Netherlands was the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection.

The applicant appealed against the decision and the Regional Court of Brno annulled the Ministry's decision, considering that: 1) the Ministry insufficiently reasoned whether the applicant would be exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment in case of transfer to the Netherlands, in breach of Article 4 of the EU Charter and 2) the Ministry did not justify the refusal to use the discretionary clause pursuant to Article 17 of the Dublin III Regulation. According to the Regional Court of Brno, the discretionary clause could apply when the determination of the Member State responsible for examining the international protection application was determined based on Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation and not under Article 3(1) of the Dublin III Regulation. The Ministry of the Interior appealed on points of law against this decision and the Supreme Administrative Court decided to stay the proceedings and to refer a question before the CJEU on the interpretation of Article 17 of the Dublin III Regulation as follows:

"Can the procedure laid down in the first subparagraph of Article 17(1) of the Dublin III Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 also derogate from the determination of the Member State responsible under Article 3(2) of that regulation, or is the exercise of discretion reserved solely to situations in which the Member State responsible was designated on the basis of Article 3(1) of that regulation?"

The Supreme Administrative Court sought clarifications on the interpretation of Article 17 of the Dublin III Regulation and mentioned that the case law of this court took the approach of a narrow interpretation, meaning that it would be possible to derogate from the determination of the responsible Member State and apply Article 17, only in cases where the determination was conducted based on the rules referred to in Article 3(1). On the contrary, according to the case law of the Supreme Administrative Court, where a Member State is designated as responsible by means of a ‘residual' criterion under Article 3(2) of the Dublin III Regulation, the discretionary power provided for in Article 17 of the Regulation cannot be applied.

The Supreme Administrative Court stated that it was inclined to consider that the discretionary clause provided under Article 17(1) of the Dublin III Regulation may be exercised also when the determination of the Member State responsible was conducted on the basis of Article 3(2) of that regulation, as it found no intention for a different approach neither in the proposals for the Dublin III Regulation, nor in the CJEU jurisprudence.