Case C-392/22,  Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer): Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 29 February 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the rechtbank Den Haag, zittingsplaats’s-Hertogenbosch - Netherlands) - X v Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Common policy on asylum and immigration – Application for international protection – Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Article 4 – Risks of inhuman or degrading treatment – Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection – Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 – Article 3(2) – Scope of the obligations of the Member State which has sought to have the applicant taken back by the Member State responsible and wishes to transfer the applicant to the latter Member State – Principle of mutual trust – Evidence and standard of proof of the real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, resulting from systemic flaws – Practices of pushback to a third country and detention at border control posts)
Date: 2024-02-29
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: EU Member State, EU migration policy, cruel and degrading treatment, foreign national, infringement of EU law, international protection, return migration, right of asylum, right to justice








C_202402570EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/2570


22.4.2024






Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 29 February 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the rechtbank Den Haag, zittingsplaats’s-Hertogenbosch - Netherlands) - X v Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid


(Case C-392/22,
                (1)
Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid (Mutual trust in the event of transfer))

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Common policy on asylum and immigration - Application for international protection - Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union - Article 4 - Risks of inhuman or degrading treatment - Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining the application for international protection - Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 - Article 3(2) - Scope of the obligations of the Member State which has sought to have the applicant taken back by the Member State responsible and wishes to transfer the applicant to the latter Member State - Principle of mutual trust - Evidence and standard of proof of the real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, resulting from systemic flaws - Practices of pushback to a third country and detention at border control posts)
(C/2024/2570)
Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Rechtbank Den Haag, zittingsplaats’s-Hertogenbosch

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant: X

Defendant: Staatssecretaris van Justitie en Veiligheid

Operative part of the judgment







1.


The second subparagraph of Article 3(2) 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
must be interpreted as meaning that the fact that the Member State responsible for examining a third-country national’s application for international protection has carried out pushbacks with respect to third-country nationals seeking to make such applications at its border and has detained them at its border control posts does not in itself preclude the transfer of that third-country national to that Member State. The transfer of that third-country national to that Member State must, however, be ruled out if there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would, during his or her transfer or thereafter, face a real risk of being subjected to such practices, and that those practices are, depending on the circumstances, which it is for the competent authorities and any court or tribunal which may be seised of an action against the transfer decision to assess, capable of placing that third-country national in so grave a situation of extreme material poverty that it may be equated with the inhuman or degrading treatment prohibited by Article 4 of the Charter.










2.


Regulation No 604/2013, read in the light of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights,
must be interpreted as meaning that:






—


the Member State which has sought to have an applicant for international protection taken back by the Member State responsible and wishes to transfer that applicant to the latter Member State must, before it can carry out that transfer, take into consideration all of the information provided to it by that applicant, in particular as regards the possible existence of a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter, at the time of that transfer or thereafter;










—


the Member State wishing to carry out the transfer must cooperate in establishing the facts and/or verify the truth of those facts;










—


that Member State must refrain from carrying out that transfer if there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of such treatment in the event of transfer;










—


that Member State may nevertheless seek to obtain individual guarantees from the Member State responsible and, if such guarantees are provided and appear to be both credible and sufficient to rule out any real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, may carry out that transfer.










(1)  
            OJ C 359, 19.9.2022.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/2570/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)