Zuheyr Frayeh Halaf v Darzhavna agentsia za bezhantsite pri Ministerskia savet.
Date: 2013-05-30
28. In that regard, it should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of European Union law, the Court is in principle bound to give a ruling (Case C‑169/07 Hartlauer  [2009] ECR I‑1721, paragraph 24, and Case C‑470/11 Garkalns  [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 17).
29. It follows that questions concerning European Union law enjoy a presumption of relevance. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred by a national court for a preliminary ruling only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of European Union law that is sought is unrelated to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (Joined Cases C‑570/07 and C‑571/07 Blanco Pérez and Chao Gómez  [2010] ECR I‑4629, paragraph 36, and Case C‑509/10 Geistbeck [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 48).
36. It is thus apparent from the very wording of Article 3(2) of the Regulation that the exercise of that option is not subject to any particular condition.
37. That conclusion is also corroborated by the preparatory documents for the Regulation. The Commission proposal that led to the adoption of the Regulation (COM(2001) 447 final) states that the rule in Article 3(2) of the Regulation was introduced in order to allow each Member State to decide sovereignly, for political, humanitarian or practical considerations, to agree to examine an application for asylum even if it is not responsible under the criteria in the Regulation.
38. Therefore, with regard to the extent of the discretion thus conferred on each Member State, whether or not the Member State responsible under the criteria set out in Chapter III of the Regulation has responded to a request to take back the asylum seeker has no bearing on the possibility of another Member State examining an application for asylum on the basis of Article 3(2) of the Regulation.
44. As a preliminary point, it should be recalled that documents from the UNHCR are among the instruments likely to enable the Member States to assess the functioning of the asylum system in the Member State indicated as responsible by the criteria in Chapter III of the Regulation, and therefore to evaluate the risks to which the asylum seeker would actually be exposed were he to be transferred to that Member State (see, to that effect, N.S. and Others , paragraphs 90 and 91). Those documents are particularly relevant in that assessment in the light of the role conferred on the UNHCR by the Geneva Convention, in consistency with which the rules of European Union law dealing with asylum must be interpreted (see, to that effect, N.S. and Others , paragraph 75, and Case C‑364/11 Abed El Karem El Kott and Others [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 43).