France: Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux - 3 month time-limit to issue a take-charge request runs as from the moment the application is formulated at the reception centre

Date: 
Friday, December 22, 2017

On 22 December 2017, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux delivered its decision in case no. 17BX03212 regarding an appeal by an Algerian asylum applicant against the decision of the Administrative Tribunal of Toulouse rejecting his request for annulment of his transfer to Spain under the Dublin III Regulation. In brief, the case concerned the starting point of the 3 month time-limit available for national authorities to send a take-charge request to another Member State, as stipulated under Article 21 of the Dublin III Regulation.

According to the Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux, this period should be calculated as from the moment the third-country national formulates an asylum request in the reception centres for asylum seekers (Plateforme d'accueil des demandeurs d'asile, in French), which in the case in question was managed by the Red Cross, and not from the time the application is registered in the Single Desk for Asylum Seeker (Guichet unique des demandes d’asile, in French). Based on the CJEU jurisprudence (particularly case C-670/16 Mengesteab) and on the general objectives of the Dublin III Regulation, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux ruled that the moment a written document materialising the applicant’s wish to apply for asylum is delivered shall be considered the moment he lodges his asylum application, as per Article 20(2) of the Dublin III Regulation. Therefore, in the case in question the time-limit of 3 months available for the French authorities to request Spain to take charge of the applicant had already expired, making France the Member State responsible for his application. Finally, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Bordeaux ordered the competent national authority to register the applicant’s asylum request and to grant him a document certifying that he had lodged an asylum application. The NGOs GISTI, ADDE and SAF voluntarily intervened before the court in this case.

Based on an unofficial translation by the ELENA Weekly Legal Update. The EWLU would like to thank Flor Tercero for bringing this case to our attention.

 


This item was reproduced with the permission of ECRE from the weekly ELENA legal update supported by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Funding Programme and distributed by email. The purpose of these updates is to inform asylum lawyers and legal organizations supporting asylum seekers and refugees of recent developments in the field of asylum law. Please note that the information provided is taken from publicly available information on the internet. Every reasonable effort is made to make the content accurate and up to date at the time each item is published but no responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by ECRE, the IRC or its partners.

                                                     

 

Keywords: 
Dublin Transfer
Effective access to procedures
Procedural guarantees