The applicant, a minor born in Lithuania, applied for international protection in Lithuania as a child of her mother, who had been granted refugee status in Lithuania in 2018 and held a permanent residence permit. The application was based on the mother's refugee status and on the fact that the applicant was a minor child who could not live separately from her family. The applicant's father had also been granted international protection in Lithuania previously, but his status had since been revoked.

On 19 December 2025, the Migration Department of the Ministry of the Interior refused to grant the applicant international protection. Point 109 of Lithuania's Description of the Procedure for Granting and Withdrawing Asylum (the Description) provides that beneficiaries of international protection can request that their children, born while the parent holds international protection in Lithuania, are granted the same form of protection without an individual merits assessment. The Migration Department stated that while the applicant formally satisfied the grounds provided for in point 109 of the Description, this provision could not be applied because, in light of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in A.B. v Ministry of the Interior (Ministerstvo vnitra České republiky) (C-349/24, 5 June 2025), point 109 was incompatible with Article 3 of the recast Qualification Directive (recast QD). Article 3 allows Member States to introduce more favourable standards for determining who qualifies for international protection, as long as those standards are compatible with the recast QD. The Migration Department therefore examined the application on the merits and found that the applicant did not individually meet the criteria for refugee status or subsidiary protection.

The applicant lodged a complaint with the Regional Administrative Court, which on 11 February 2026 annulled the Migration Department's decision and remitted the case for re-examination. The Migration Department appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court.

On 22 April 2026, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the Migration Department's appeal and upheld the first instance judgment. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the first instance court correctly held that the interpretation provided by the CJEU in A.B. v Ministry of the Interior (Ministerstvo vnitra České republiky) (C-349/24, 5 June 2025) is not relevant to the resolution of the present case and cannot justify the non-application of point 109 of the Description. In the cited judgement, the CJEU concluded that Article 3 of the recast QD precludes national legislation which provides for the grant of subsidiary protection to a third-country national who would upon removal face a real risk of suffering a breach of private life due to the severing of links with the Member State. The CJEU also stated that a residence permit on a ground that does not relate to the situation in the applicant's country of origin is unrelated to the rationale of international protection, and thus a Member State cannot grant subsidiary protection on that ground. The Supreme Administrative Court noted that in the present case, the issue was different from the one interpreted by the CJEU. Moreover, in the case addressed by the CJEU, the applicant was an independent adult, while the present case concerned a minor.

To substantiate its decision, the Supreme Administrative Court referred to extensive CJEU jurisprudence. Pointing to the CJEU judgement in Mohamed M'Bodj v État belge (C-542/13, 18 December 2014), the Supreme Administrative Court explained that the limit for the more favourable national standards under Article 3 of the recast QD consists in that these standards cannot undermine the general scheme or objectives of the recast QD and cannot be applied to persons whose situation is wholly unrelated to the rationale of international protection. Moreover, referring to CJUE's ruling in Nigyar Raul Kaza Ahmedbekova and Raul Emin Ogla Ahmedbekov v Deputy Chair of the State Agency for Refugees (Zamestnik-predsedatel na Darzhavna agentsia za bezhantsite),[Ahmedbekova] (C-652/16, 4 October 2018), the Supreme Administrative Court reminded that automatic recognition of international protection for family members of a beneficiary of international protection is not a priori contrary to the rationale of international protection, in view of the need to preserve family unity. In fact, in LW v Bundesrepublik Deutschland (C-91/20, 9 November 2021) the CJEU held that Articles 3 and 23(2) of the recast QD do not preclude a Member State from granting international protection on the basis of more favourable national provisions to the minor child of a beneficiary of international protection, as a derived right in order to maintain family unity.

The Supreme Administrative Court concluded that there was no basis to find that granting the applicant derived international protection under point 109 would be wholly incompatible with the rationale of international protection. On the contrary, it would ensure application of the best interests of the child principle, due regard for the need to preserve family unity, the child's welfare and social development, and guarantees of her physical and psychological safety. Considering that the Migration Department had taken into account the revocation of the applicant's father's international protection but not the fact that the applicant's mother had retained her status, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled the Migration Department unjustifiably failed to apply the more favourable provisions provided for family members in point 109 of the Description. It also failed to assess whether, if international protection was not granted, the best interests of the child would be duly ensured, as required by the recast QD and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In conclusion, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the Migration Department's appeal and upheld the Regional Administrative Court's judgment of 11 February 2026, which annulled the Migration Department's decision of 19 December 2025.