A Turkish national, holder of a French visa to enter Schengen area for a period of 90 days between December 2023 to December 2025, moved to Czechia where he owns real estate. Upon a trip back to Türkiye, he found that his Turkish citizenship was revoked and was detained in Turkey for few days. Before acquiring Turkish citizenship on basis of real estate ownership, he was a holder of Russian citizenship, under a different name. The applicant was returned to Czechia where he applied for international protection in the transit area of ​​Prague Ruzyně Airport on 27 April 2024.

Based on his French visa, the Ministry of the Interior sent a take back request to the French authorities pursuant to the Dublin III Regulation. The French authorities accepted the request and consented to the take charge request. The Ministry of the Interior decided on 30 September 2024 that France is the Member State responsible for examining the application and rejected it as inadmissible. The applicant unsuccessfully applied before the Regional Court of Pilsen and further submitted a cassation appeal before the Supreme Administrative Court.

By ruling of 27 March 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court allowed the cassation appeal, annulled the contested decision and remitted the case due to lack of assessment on the existence of systemic deficiencies in the French asylum system. In the re-examination proceedings, the applicant argued for the first time before the Regional Court of Pilsen that the deadline for his transfer has expired. He pointed out that pursuant to Article 29 (1) of the Dublin III Regulation, the deadline for the transfer is 6 months after the application has been received by another Member State. As such, the deadline expired on 22 November 2024 because France accepted its jurisdiction on 22 May 2024. The Ministry of the Interior contested this argument and stated that the deadline was extended to 18 months on grounds of absconding of the applicant, pursuant to Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the new period began to run on the same day and will not expire until 15 May 2026. It added that the applicant moved and applied for international protection in France. The Ministry of the Interior submitted an information communicated to the French authorities on the extension of the period dated 22 November 2024. The applicant counterargued that he was not aware of having been considered as absconding until the proceedings before this court, which according to him was contrary to the right to an effective remedy under Article 27 of the Dublin III Regulation. The applicant’s objection was based on the fact that since he was not informed of the extension of the transfer deadline, he could not defend himself against this aspect and reiterated that prior to leaving for France he was always present at his known address in Czechia and was in contact with his legal representative.

The Regional Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal on 23 June 2025 and ruled that the applicant was considered to have absconded because he did not appear within one month for the transfer order and he left for France without informing the administrative authorities.

The applicant filled a second cassation appeal mainly to object on the expiry of the six months deadline for implementing the decision on a Dublin transfer.

The Supreme Administrative Court assessed that the appeal was admissible because it was based on a new ground not raised in the first cassation appeal. The court found a fundamental error in the judgment on of the regional court with regard to deadlines for transfer under Article 29 (1-2) of the Dublin III Regulation.

Citing the CJEU judgment Majid Shiri v Bundesamt für Fremdenwesen und Asyl, (C-201/16, 25 October 2017), it reiterated that Article 27(1) of the Dublin III Regulation requires an effective and rapid remedy enabling the applicant to rely on the expiry of the six-month transfer period laid down in Article 29(1) and (2) of that regulation, even if it expires after the transfer decision has been issued. Also, referencing the CJEU judgment in Jawo (C-163/17, 19 March 2019), the court emphasised that the concept of absconding within the meaning of the second sentence of Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation requires conscious action on the part of the applicant to avoid the competent authorities with the aim to prevent the implementation of the transfer. But if the applicant leaves the accommodation allocated to him without informing the competent authorities, the latter may legitimately assume his intention to prevent the transfer if he was duly informed of his obligations beforehand. Building on the Shiri judgment, the CJEU reinforced in Jawo that the applicant must be able to rebut the presumption of absconding and to demonstrate the contrary. On the formal requirements for an extension of the period on grounds of absconding, the CJEU held that it was sufficient for the requesting Member State to inform the responsible Member State on the fact of absconding, before the expiry of the six-month period, and to set a new period.

In view of the abovementioned, the Supreme Administrative Court considered that the lower court succinctly reasoned its decision and insufficiently addressed the applicant’s arguments related to his obligation to appear before the authority’s since he submitted an appeal and a request for suspensive effect of the transfer decision within the one-month period. The Supreme Court considered that the Regional Court did not address the applicant's argument that he should have appeared for the issuance of the transfer order only after the request to grant suspensive effect to the action was rejected. It noted that the request for suspensive effect was rejected by a resolution of 15 November 2024, which only entered into force on 18 November 2024, thus the one-month period within which the applicant was under an obligation to appear would have expired only in mid-December 2024, after the expiry of the six-month period for the transfer pursuant to Article 29(1) of the Dublin III Regulation. The Supreme Administrative Court disagreed with the lower court that the applicant absconded because he moved to France without informing the administrative authorities in the absence of clear indication of the actual date when he moved. It held that the lower court omitted to address essentials arguments of the applicant thus leading to an unconvincing basis to conclude that the applicant absconded. The Supreme Administrative Court concluded that the lower court did not reason on the merits on the concept of absconding within the meaning of Article 29(2) of the Dublin III Regulation. Also, it pointed out that even if it would find that the applicant travelled to France before 22 November 2024, it must explain the reasons for which it considers that the voluntary execution of the Dublin decision on transfer meets the criteria for the concept of absconding within the meaning of Article 29(2) of the Dublin Regulation, or to which extent it is significant for such assessment.

The Supreme Administrative Court considered the cassation appeal well-founded and annulled the contested judgment, remitting the case for further proceedings.