Dublin

General

Dublin statistics: 2024

Source: Office for Foreigners.

Source: Office for Foreigners.

Source: Office for Foreigners

As the statistics show, Poland is mainly a country receiving Dublin requests from other countries. The most frequent case is when an applicant has his application under examination in Poland and made another application in another Member State (or stays there without a residence document).

Procedure

The Head of the Office for Foreigners is responsible for Dublin procedures and the Border Guard is responsible for transfers.[2] All asylum applicants over the age of 14 are fingerprinted and checked in Eurodac at the time of lodging their asylum application. In all cases, the Head of the Office for Foreigners applies the Dublin procedure.[3] The CJEU’s ruling in Mengesteab,[4] which allows Member States to implement the Dublin procedure from the time of registration before the submission of an application, has not altered the practice of the Office for Foreigners. The Office still initiates the Dublin procedure from the time when the application is submitted.

According to the Office for Foreigners, if the authorities decide to apply the Dublin procedure, asylum applicants are informed about it. They are also informed about the following steps of the procedure e.g. decision received from another Member State, or the need to submit additional documents.

• Individualised guarantees

The Office for Foreigners responded, that in 2024 Italy and Greece were the countries to which the requests for transfers were not sent.[5]

• Transfers

According to the Border Guard, the transfer is organised within days from the moment the decision on transfer becomes final, bearing in mind the time in which other states expect to be informed about the transfer in advance and depending on the availability of plane tickets, etc.[6]

Asylum applicants are transferred under escort only when there is a risk of absconding or if they have already absconded before. According to the Office for Foreigners, it concerns applicants staying in detention, but there are also cases where applicants staying outside the detention centres were transferred under escort.

There is also a legal basis for detention in Dublin outgoing procedures, based on the risk of absconding (see the section on Grounds for Detention).[7] The Border Guard reported that in 2024, 113 persons were transferred from detention centres under the Dublin procedure. No information about the legal grounds for detention was provided.[8]

Personal interview

There is no separate interview where an applicant’s case falls under the Dublin Regulation. Additional questions for the Dublin procedure form an integral part of the asylum application form.[9]

Appeal

Asylum seekers can appeal against decisions taken in the Dublin procedure to the Refugee Board (and then to the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw and the Supreme Administrative Court) within 14 days following the same procedure described in the section on appeals in the Regular Procedure: Appeal.

The average time for the appeal procedure in Dublin cases in 2024 was 73 days (up from 58 days in 2023). In 2024, the Refugee Board issued 25 decisions (also 25 in 2023) in Dublin proceedings (covering 29 persons), with only 1 decision overturning the decision of the first instance authority, affecting 1 foreigner.[10]

Legal assistance

Free legal assistance is offered as described in the section on Regular Procedure: Legal Assistance. State legal aid covers preparing an appeal and representation in the second instance.[11]

Suspension of transfers

In 2024, Dublin transfer requests were submitted to all countries except Italy and Greece.[12]

The situation of Dublin returnees

There are concerns about whether, under the provisions of the Polish law, Dublin returnees are always entitled to re-opening their first proceedings on international protection. The time limit to reopen the procedure, set out in the Law on Protection, is 9 months. Contrary to Article 18(2) of the Dublin III Regulation, in cases where e.g. the applicant did not wait for examination of their asylum claim in Poland but went to another Member State and did not come back to Poland within 9 months, the case will not be evaluated under the regular “in-merit” procedure. Their application lodged after this deadline will instead be considered as a subsequent application and subject to an admissibility procedure.[13] Moreover, if a person left Poland when their application was processed by the appeal authority and the procedure was discontinued by the Refugee Board, there is no possibility of reopening the procedure, even within the 9-month time limit.[14] Again, in such a situation, the application of the returnee will not re-open the first proceedings and will be considered as a subsequent application.

Moreover, HFHR reports, that even in a situation when a returnee is entitled to re-open their first procedure, the Border Guards in the detention centres for foreigners make them lodge the subsequent application instead, which is then subject to the admissibility procedure.[15] Usually, the second application, based on the same facts as the first one, would be declared inadmissible. Domestic law provides no exception in that respect to the Dublin returnees. Such a situation could therefore violate Article 18(2) of the Dublin III Regulation. The inability to continue the first asylum procedure also means that the Dublin returnees who had already spent the maximum period of 6 months in detention before having left Poland, could be again placed in detention centres after their transfer. In such cases, the summary detention period exceeds 6 months.[16]

These findings are supported by the statistics presented by the Office for Foreigners. In 2024, there were 3,408 decisions discontinuing international protection applications.[17] The vast majority of these decisions were issued because the applicant withdrew the application, but not in an explicit way, mostly they left the reception centre and did not come back within 7 days (2,297 cases out of 3,408). Other cases included circumstances like: the applicant did not reach the reception centre within 2 days after lodging an application for international protection or did not arrive to the interview, or left Poland.[18] In 2024, the Office registered 216 requests to reopen the procedure, lodged within the 9 months-time limit and issued 28 decisions considering the application admissible. There is no information on the number of requests lodged after the 9 months-time limit, 2,449 persons lodged subsequent applications in 2024. In the cases of 669 persons, the Office for Foreigners considered the subsequent application inadmissible.[19]

In 2023, the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw specified that the fact that the migrant had left Poland did not relieve the authorities of their duties to consider whether there were grounds for granting a residence permit for humanitarian reasons in the return proceedings case, which might have relevant effects on the cases of Dublin returnees.[20]

[2] Article 36(2) Law on Protection.

[3] The Dublin procedure should be applied in every case: Article 36(1) Law on Protection.

[4] CJEU, Case C-670/16, Tsegezab Mengesteab v. Bundesrepublik Deutschland (GC), Judgment of 26 July 2017.

[5] Information from the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.

[6] Information provided by the Border Guard, 13 January 2023.

[7] Article 398(1)(3a) Law on Foreigners.

[8] Information provided by the Border Guard, 7 March 2025.

[9] Regulation on the application form (see table on legislation).

[10] Information provided by the Refugee Board, February 2025. .

[11] Article 69e Law on Protection.

[12] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.

[13] Article 40(6) Law on Protection.

[14] Information provided by the Refugee Board on 12 January 2023, DOB.WR.1510.1.2023.

[15] HFHR, Input by civil society organisations to the EU Agency for Asylum Report 2023, available (EN) here, page 6.

[16] Ibidem, page 7.

[17] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.

[18] Article 40(2) Law on Protection.

[19] Information provided by the Office for Foreigners, 19 February 2025.

[20] SIP, Provincial Administrative Court (WSA): prerequisites for a humanitarian residence permit should be examined even if the migrant is outside Poland, 13 Feburary 2024, available here.