Author
The Asylum Act defines safe country of origin as a country which:
- generally and consistently does not have persecution, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or threats from indiscriminate violence during an international or internal armed conflict;
- is not a country that its nationals (or stateless residents) leave for asylum or subsidiary protection reasons (§ 12 or § 14a);
- has ratified and complies with international human rights treaties, including rules on effective remedies; and
- allows human-rights organisations to operate and monitor the human rights situation.[1]
The concept of safe countries of origin is used in practice. If an applicant comes from a safe country of origin, his application can be rejected as manifestly unfounded, unless the applicant proves that, in his or her individual case, that state cannot be regarded as such.[2]
A decision rejecting an application as manifestly unfounded has to be issued within 90 days.[3] The main procedural differences compared to the regular procedure include a shortened deadline for appeal (15 days) and the lack of automatic suspensive effect of the appeal.
A list of safe countries of origin is included in governmental decree no. 328/2015 Coll. In 2025, these countries were considered to be safe countries of origin: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ghana, Georgia, India, Iceland, Canada, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Morocco, Moldova, Mongolia, Norway, New Zealand, Senegal, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, Serbia, Switzerland and Tunisia.
Until September 2023, Georgia and Moldova were included on this list with territorial exceptions (Georgia with the exception of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moldova with the exception of Transnistria). This resulted in a preliminary reference in a case C-406/22 by the Regional Court in Brno.[4] Even before the CJEU confirmed that the Asylum Procedures Directive does not allow for the designation of a safe country of origin with territorial exceptions, the decree no. 326/2015 Coll. was amended and removed territorial exceptions from the list. In the explanatory report to this amendment, it was stated that the asylum authority would take into account the specific situations in these regions in the individual proceedings and the presumption of safety would not apply, effectively side-stepping the prohibition of territorial exceptions.
Given the form of the list of safe countries of origin, as a governmental decree, it is not possible to appeal the introduction of a new country to said list. It is, however, possible to challenge the designation of the country as safe before the court in the appeal filed in the individual case of an asylum seeker whose application was rejected as manifestly unfounded for this reason.
In the case files of applications for international protection submitted by applicants from a safe country of origin, there is usually only one document titled Assessment of [country name] as a Safe Country of Origin. However, this document often contains information that is very brief and general, and does not always sufficiently demonstrate that the country meets all the conditions for being designated as safe, as required by the Asylum Procedures Directive and the Asylum Act. In some cases, the designation of particular countries have been criticised by courts, especially because of the lack of relevant and up to date COI included in the case file. For example, in relation to Algeria, the SAC held that country reports must rely primarily on information from other Member States, the EUAA, UNHCR, and the Council of Europe —sources explicitly required under Article 37(3) of the Asylum Procedures Directive. In that case, the SAC found that the asylum authority had not meaningfully considered these materials with respect to Algeria. In the country reports it used, these sources were mentioned only sporadically and merely to support fragmentary or purely formal statements (such as references to international treaties Algeria had ratified). Instead, the SAC noted that the authority should have relied on the required sources to assess whether Algeria met the criteria set out in Annex I to the Asylum Procedures Directive.[5]
The MoI shall review the lists established by the decree at least once per calendar year.[6] Whether and how this is being done is not clear.
Altogether, 219 nationals of safe countries of origin applied for asylum in 2025, as follows: Moldova (86), Georgia (41), Algeria (23) Armenia (21), Tunisia (20), India (12), Kosovo (1), Morocco (6), Mongolia (5), Ghana (1), and Senegal (1).
[1] Section 2(1)(k) of the Asylum Act.
[2] Section 16 (2) of the Asylum Act.
[3] Section 27(5) of the Asylum Act.
[4] CJEU confirmed that procedural directive does not allow for designation of safe country of origin with a territorial exception (CJEU, judgement No C-406/22, October 4, 2024).
[5] SAC, judgement No 10 Azs 161/2022-56, 12 October 2022, available in Czech here, paras 22–23.
[6] Section 86(4) of the Asylum Act.