Referral to CJEU in Case C- 158/13 Hamidullah Rajaby v Staatssecretaris van Veiligheid en Justitite

A reference for a preliminary ruling concerning the Dublin Regulation was published this week by the CJEU. It was lodged on 28 March 2013 by the Rechtbank Den Haag (Netherlands) and the questions read as follows:

In the circumstances of the present dispute, in which there appears to be an evident infringement of European Union law which will continue to have consequences in the future, and in which, in the administrative phase, the parties exchanged views on the applicability of Article 14 of Regulation No 343/2003 which they did not address again during the court proceedings, but on which the applicant also did not expressly rely during the court proceedings, is it contrary to European Union law if the court, by reason of the prohibition in national law on initiating a review of its own motion, does not address that issue?

Do the circumstances of the present dispute constitute dependency within the meaning of Article 15 (2) of Regulation No 343/2003, that is to say, where the family members are a young woman without any education, from Afghanistan, who is accompanied by two children currently 5 1/2 and 3 years of age who are in her care and in relation to whose care and education she cannot rely on anyone other than her husband and father of the children, and on whose asylum application, moreover, a negative decision has been taken by the defendant because her account was considered to be wholly unbelievable, and that account can be supported by the statements of the applicant and by the (copies of the) documents which he has brought with him?

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