On the 18th of January 2023, the District Court of Ten Hague ruled in its judgment, NL22.23286. In the present case, the State Secretary did not assess the applicant’s asylum claim because it stated that Italy was responsible to consider the application under the Dublin Regulation III. The Netherlands submitted a take back request that was not responded to, hence Italy became the responsible MS. The applicant contested as his father, who has a residence permit in the Netherlands, depends on his care.
The Court first stated that in the context of Article 16 of the Dublin Regulation, it is up to the applicant to make it plausible that the father depends on his assistance. The Court considers that the residential supervisor is an objective source of information relating to the father’s needs, however, the father’s situation was not based on any medical opinion and therefore concludes that he did not sufficiently substantiate the alleged dependency.
The Court further examined the principle of mutual trust between EU Member States. The applicant stated that the situation in Italy has deteriorated significantly and is likely to get worse. The Court rejected the applicant’s arguments because they are largely speculative. The Court then examined Italy’s Circular of the 5th of December 2022 requesting the temporary suspension of Dublin transfer because of unavailability of reception facilities. In that regard, the Court stated that these reasons should, for the time being, only be regarded as a temporary impediment to a factual transfer due to its alleged temporary nature. In its view, the text indicates a problem potentially affecting the principle mutual trust but does not (yet) indicate structural and fundamental deficiencies in the Italian reception facilities. The claimant therefore failed to rebut the presumption of the mutual trust. However, the Court declared that the Secretary will need to assess the asylum application if the temporary impediment last longer than the transfer deadline under the Dublin Regulation.