On 18 June 2026, the First Instance Administrative Court of Thessaloniki published its decision to refer a preliminary question to the Court of Justice of the EU regarding the compatibility with EU law of electronic notification of decisions on asylum applications.
The applicant, a Chinese citizen, applied for international protection in 2023, which was rejected as manifestly unfounded. She was informed of the rejection decision when she sought to renew her asylum applicant’s card at the Asylum Office. The applicant claimed she did not receive any email and submitted an appeal. That appeal was dismissed by the Appeals Authority because it was not submitted within the foreseen deadline under national law. She applied to annul the decision of the Appeals Authority and alleged that the calculation of the appeal deadline on the basis of the electronic notification violated her right to effective judicial protection under Article 46 of the Asylum Procedures Directive (APD) and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (CFREU).
The Court noted that there are no rules in the APD regarding the notification of decisions, so the matter can be arranged within the procedural autonomy of each Member State with respect to effective judicial protection and the principle of equivalence. It went on to analyse the national asylum law, national legal instruments with equivalent forms of notification, the APD and CJEU case law and decided to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling:
- whether Greece’s rule deeming asylum rejection decisions served 48 hours after an email is sent – with no way to verify actual receipt or access, and no means of rebutting that presumption – is compatible with Article 47 CFREU and Article 46 APD, given that this notification date starts the appeal deadline;
- whether this violates the principle of equivalence since electronic tax notifications in Greece do include a verification system and courts have rejected an analogous presumption where receipt of a registered letter is disputed.
- what is the role of consent to electronic notification in such disputes;
- whether the national measure in question creates an irrebuttable presumption of notification;
- whether her claim that the message went to spam, should affect the analysis.