Case C‑4/11

Bundesrepublik Deutschland

v

Kaveh Puid

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Hessischer Verwaltungsgerichtshof)

(Asylum — Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — Article 4 — Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 — Article 3(1) and (2) — Determination of the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national — Articles 6 to 12 — Criteria for determining the Member State responsible — Article 13 — Fall-back clause)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber), 14 November 2013

Fundamental rights — Prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — Scope — Border controls, asylum and immigration — Asylum policy — Criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application — Regulation No 343/2003 — Systemic deficiencies in the asylum procedure and in the conditions for the reception of applicants in a Member State — Prohibition on other Member States transferring an asylum seeker to that Member State — Consequences — Obligation on the Member State to which an asylum application has been made to identify another Member State responsible — Where transfer is impossible, no obligation on that first Member State itself to examine the asylum application

(Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 4; Council Regulation No 343/2003, Arts 3(2) and 13)

Where the Member States cannot be unaware that systemic deficiencies in the asylum procedure and in the conditions for the reception of asylum seekers in the Member State initially identified as responsible in accordance with the criteria set out in Chapter III of Regulation No 343/2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national provide substantial grounds for believing that the asylum seeker concerned would face a real risk of being subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment within the meaning of Article 4 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is a matter for the national court to verify, the Member State which is determining the Member State responsible is required not to transfer the asylum seeker to the Member State initially identified as responsible and, subject to the exercise of the right itself to examine the application, to continue to examine the criteria set out in that chapter, in order to establish whether another Member State can be identified as responsible in accordance with one of those criteria or, if it cannot, under Article 13 of the Regulation.

Conversely, a finding that it is impossible to transfer an asylum seeker to the Member State initially identified as responsible does not in itself mean that the Member State which is determining the Member State responsible is required itself, under Article 3(2) of Regulation No 343/2003, to examine the application for asylum.

(see paras 30, 31, 33, 36, 37, operative part)