JUDGMENT
OF
25. 7. 2018 — CASE C-585/16
ALHETO
60
Ms Alheto brought an action before the Administrativen sad Sofia-grad (Administrative Court, Sofia,
Bulgaria) for annulment of the contested decision. She maintained that some of the evidence put
forward during individual interviews had not been examined, in breach of Article 75 of the ZUB, and
that the evidence that had been examined had, itself, been incorrectly assessed, in breach of Articles 8
and 9 of the ZUB.
61
That court considers that the DAB should, in principle, have examined the application for international
protection lodged by Ms Alheto on the basis of Article 12(1)(4) of the ZUB and not on the basis of
Articles 8 and 9 of that law. The contested decision does not therefore comply with the ZUB or with
the corresponding rules laid down in Directive 2011/95, in particular Article 12(1)(a) of that directive.
62
However, that court observes that Article 12(1)(4) of the ZUB fails correctly to transpose
Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95 which, it says, complicates the handling of the application for
international protection at issue in the main proceedings.
63
Furthermore, having regard to the obligation to ensure an effective remedy, and in particular to the
requirement for a full and ex nunc examination, set out in Article 46(3) of Directive 2013/32, it is
necessary to determine, inter alia in the light of Articles 18, 19 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental
Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’), the scope of the jurisdiction laid down by the EU
legislature. It is important, inter alia, to ascertain, in the context of such a full and ex nunc
examination, whether the court may factor into its assessment matters, including grounds of
inadmissibility, which could not be taken into account when the contested decision rejecting the
application for international protection was adopted.
64
In that context, the referring court wishes, in particular, to know whether, in circumstances such as
those at issue in the main proceedings, a person registered with UNRWA who has fled the Gaza Strip
and stayed in Jordan before travelling to the European Union must be considered to be sufficiently
protected in Jordan, with the result that the application for international protection lodged in the
European Union must be declared inadmissible.
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Finally, the question arises whether, after the annulment of a decision rejecting an application for
international protection, the court may, or must, itself adopt a decision on the application for
international protection.
66
In those circumstances, the Administrativen sad Sofia-grad (Administrative Court, Sofia) decided to
stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary
ruling:
‘(1) Does it follow from Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95, read in conjunction with Article 10(2) of
Directive 2013/32 and Article 78(2)(a) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
that:
(a) it is permissible for an application for international protection made by a stateless person of
Palestinian origin who is registered as a refugee with [UNRWA] and who, before making that
application, was resident in that agency’s area of operations (the Gaza Strip) to be examined
as an application under Article 1(A) of the [Geneva Convention] rather than as an
application for international protection under the second [paragraph] of Article 1(D) of that
convention, where responsibility for examining the application has been assumed on grounds
other than compassionate or humanitarian grounds and the examination of the application is
governed by Directive 2011/95;
(b) it is permissible for such an application to be examined without taking into account the
conditions laid down in Article 12(1)(a) of Directive 2011/95, with the result that the
interpretation of that provision by the Court of Justice … is not applied?
ECLI:EU:C:2018:584
13