The case of Bevándorlási és Menekültügyi Hivatal, adjudicated by the CJEU on 19 March 2020, is very similar to the case of Ahmed and Ilias v. Hungary (see below, on this page) which was decided a few months earlier, on 21 November 2019, by the ECHR. In both cases the main issue was the way Hungarian courts had made use of the possibility, provided for by article 33.2 (c) of the Procedures Directive, to declare a request for international protection inadmissible on the ground that a country which is not a Member State is considered as a safe third country for the applicant.

The CJEU found the domestic legislation not to have adequately transposed the Directive by omitting to incorporate some of its basic requirements, including the principle of non-refoulement. It thereby came, in substance, much to the same conclusion as the ECHR, which for its part had found, inter alia, Hungarian courts to have breached the procedural obligations flowing from Article 3 of the Convention.

Interestingly, however, and in contrast with the ECHR ruling, the CJEU elaborated on the requirement, for a third country to be able to be considered safe, that there be a connection between the applicant and the third country concerned on the basis of which it would be reasonable for that person to go to that country (Art. 38.2 (a) of the Directive). In its opinion, the mere fact of transiting through a specific country could not be considered as amounting to such a connection.

No such requirement flows from the Convention. In this respect, EU law would appear to offer a higher protection standard. This, however, is in line with Article 53 of the Convention, which allows States to exceed the minimum Convention protection standard, including on the basis of EU law (see, on this latter aspect, mutatis mutandis, M.N. v. Belgium (dec.), no. 3599/18, 5.5.2020, § 140).