Preliminary questions Administrative Jurisdiction Division
The earlier preliminary questions
posed by the Administrative Jurisdiction Division on November 8, 2023, to the European Court concern the authority under the European Procedure Directive to extend the standard decision period for asylum requests of six months by up to nine months. This extension applies to all asylum requests for which the statutory decision period had not yet expired on September 27, 2022, and which were submitted until January 1, 2023. Subsequently, the decision period for asylum requests was extended again by nine months. This time for asylum requests submitted from January 1, 2023, until at the latest January 1, 2024. The Administrative Jurisdiction Division wondered how successive extensions of the decision period should be assessed in light of the European Procedure Directive.
Judgment Court of Justice
In its judgment today, the Court of Justice ruled that a Member State may decide multiple times in succession to extend the decision period. However, the Member State must demonstrate with concrete data that, despite efforts to cope with the simultaneous influx of asylum applications, it has not had sufficient time to provide appropriate and adequate resources to decide on time. The total duration of successive extensions must not exceed the time the Member State needs to fulfill that obligation and must not be longer than a maximum of 21 months after the submission of an asylum request.
Continuation of proceedings
This judgment of the Court of Justice does not yet end the procedure before the Administrative Jurisdiction Division. It had suspended the handling of case number 202400194/1 pending the answers from the Court in Luxembourg. Now that the European Court has answered the preliminary questions, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division will resume the handling of this case and later issue a final ruling.