The applicant, a national of Tajikistan, applied for international protection in Slovakia in December 2024. By decision of 22 May 2025, the Ministry of the Interior (the Ministry) refused to grant the applicant international protection. The Ministry decided that the applicant should be excluded from being a refugee and from being eligible for subsidiary protection due to serious reasons for considering that he has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations and that he constitutes a danger to the security of Slovakia, pursuant to Sections 13(2)(c) and 13c(2)(c) and (d) of the Act on Asylum, which correspond to Articles 12(1)(c) and 17(1)(c) and (d) of the recast Qualification Directive (recast QD), as well as to Article 1(F)(c) of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

In its decision, the Ministry relied primarily on a classified intelligence assessment by the Slovak Information Service, as well as the unclassified intelligence statement that the applicant posed a security risk due to reasonable suspicion of terrorist activities. The Ministry further relied on an Interpol Red Notice related to the applicant's arrest warrant for alleged extremist and terrorist activities issued in Tajikistan, the Schengen Information System records entered by France and Slovakia, and the applicant's earlier declarations related to his online activity. The applicant challenged the Ministry's refusal of international protection before the Administrative Court in Košice.

By judgment of 2 October 2025, the Administrative Court in Košice annulled the Ministry's decision. The court held that the Ministry failed to sufficiently disclose the reasons why the applicant suspected of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. According to the court, the repeated statement that the applicant was reasonably suspected of terrorism, including participation, financing or support, and cyberterrorism, was insufficient and did not allow the applicant a genuine opportunity to respond. The court further held that the Ministry had also failed to properly assess the risk of facing serious harm in the form of cruel or inhuman treatment if the applicant returned to Tajikistan. The Ministry lodged a cassation complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court.

By judgment of 25 March 2026, the Supreme Administrative Court allowed the Ministry's cassation complaint, annulled the judgment of the Administrative Court in Košice and remitted the case back to that court. Referring to the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (ZZ v Secretary of State for the Home Department, C-300/11, 4 June 2023; GM v Országos Idegenrendeszeti Főigazgatóság, Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal, Terrorelhárítási Központ, C-159/21, 22 September 2022), the court recalled that the right to defence and access to the file, stemming from Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, can be restricted for reasons of national security, but cannot be completely curtailed. In this sense, the person concerned or their legal representative must be informed of at least the essence of the grounds for the administrative decision. The Supreme Administrative Court also referred to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Muhammad and Muhammad v Romania (No 80982/12, 15 October 2020) according to which a foreign national must be informed of the essence of the allegations, but not necessarily of all the underlying reasons.

In light of these principles, the Supreme Administrative Court held that the unclassified intelligence assessment of the Slovak Information Service represented the relevant “essence of the grounds” for the Ministry's decision, and therefore sufficiently informed the applicant about what he was suspected of. The court explained that disclosing detailed information obtained by the intelligence services could lead to obstruction of their duties and revelation of their investigation methods, endangering national security as well as security of other countries and persons. Revealing further details in the present case could therefore disclose information that had to remain classified. In support of this, the court referred to its own judgment (2Sak/5/2025), where the court in another case ruled that informing an applicant about being suspected of activities related to illegal migration satisfied the obligation to provide the essence of the grounds for the decision, and the Ministry was not obliged to provide further details that would endanger national security.

In conclusion, the Supreme Administrative Court annulled the judgment of the Administrative Court in Košice and ordered it to re-examine the case in line with the legal opinion of the Supreme Administrative Court. For that purpose, the Administrative Court in Košice shall request and examine the classified intelligence assessment of the Slovak Information Service.