These requests for a preliminary ruling concern the interpretation of Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 31) (‘the Dublin III Regulation’).

The requests for a preliminary ruling have been made in disputes between the Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitie (State Secretary for Security and Justice, Netherlands) (‘the State Secretary’) and H. and R., Syrian nationals, regarding the refusal to examine their applications for international protection.

The Court rules: 

Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person must be interpreted as meaning that a third-country national who lodged an application for international protection in a first Member State, then left that Member State and subsequently lodged a new application for international protection in a second Member State:

– is not, in principle, entitled to rely, in an action brought under Article 27(1) of the Regulation in that second Member State against a decision to transfer him or her, on the criterion for determining responsibility set out in Article 9 thereof;

– may, by way of exception, invoke, in such an action, that criterion for determining responsibility, in a situation covered by Article 20(5) of the Regulation, in so far as that third-country national has provided the competent authority of the requesting Member State with information clearly establishing that it should be regarded as the Member State responsible for examining the application pursuant to that criterion for determining responsibility.

See also NL Council of State Jurisprudence following CJEU Ruling