Dublin Procedure

•  The Dublin III regulation determining the criteria for deciding on the responsibility of processing an asylum application (Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for interna- tional protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person: Dublin III Regulation);

• The Commission implementing regulation laying down rules for the implementation of the Dublin III Regulation (Commission implementing regulation (EU) No 118/2014 of 30 January 2014 amending Regulation (EC) No 1560/2003 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national: containing procedures for requests including forms, deadlines for requests, types of evidence for determining responsibility);

• EURODAC Regulation, which establishes a European fingerprint database for those wishing to apply for asylum and for those who enter the territory of the EU irregularly.

When an asylum seeker lodges an application for asylum in Switzerland, the reception and procedure centers run by SEM seek to determine if another state is responsible for examining the asylum application in application of the Dublin regulation.

In order to do so, the asylum seeker is interviewed on his/her itinerary and family circumstances and their fingerprints are run through the central fingerprint database EURODAC in order to determine if they have been recorded in another member state of the Dublin area (EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein).

Following this, if there are grounds to believe that an asylum seeker can be placed under the Dublin procedure, the Dublin Office is notified. At that stage, the Dublin Office is in charge of determining responsibility for taking charge of or taking back the applicant and corresponding with the authorities of the Dublin member state concerned to this aim. The Dublin Office also manages deadlines in this respect and is in charge of communicating information relating to the transfer to the received member state.

If another Dublin member state accepts to take charge/take back the asylum applicant, the SEM issues a decision to dismiss without entering into the substance of the case and removal of the applicant. Such removal is normally connected with an entry ban for 3 years. Such ban will be lifted upon request once asylum is granted in another member state.

The asylum applicant can appeal against this decision before the Federal Administrative Tribunal within 5 working days. The Tribunal’s decision is final and cannot be appealed against (exception: international litigation).

If the appeal is rejected, the cantonal authorities manage the transfer of the asylum seeker to the Dublin member state responsible. Note that oftentimes detention is ordered in Dublin cases.

These criteria are laid down in hierarchical order in articles 7 to 15 of the Dublin III Regulation. They must be examined and applied in the order that they are laid down in the Dublin III Regulation.

• Unauthorized entrance and unauthorized stay: When an asylum seeker enters the member state’ territory without possessing a visa or residence document enabling him/her to enter the territory, the member state of an asylum seeker’s first entrance is responsible for examining the asylum application. The same rule applies to asylum seekers who have remained unauthorized in one member state, before lodging an application for asylum in another member state. This is the situation we are mostly con fronted with, in particular with people coming through Italy or Greece.

• Family and unaccompanied minors: The Dublin Regulations emphasizes the importance of protecting unaccompanied minor asylum seekers and family unity. If, for instance, close relatives become separated from each other during the flight from their home country and lodge asylum applications with different member states, the regulations enable national authorities to reunify the family in one member state and to con- duct one joint asylum procedure for the whole family. Moreover, if the asylum seeker has family members who have previously lodged an application with another member state, or who have been allowed to reside as permanent residents or as recognised refugees in a member state, that member state can take responsibility.

• Visas and residence permits: When a member state issues a visa to an asylum seeker, this member state is generally responsible for examining the asylum seeker’s application.

• Consecutive asylum procedures: When an asylum seeker applies for asylum in a first member state, leaves the country for a second member state and lodges a further asylum application, the first member state is, in general, responsible for examining the application.

When an asylum seeker receives a negative decision by the SEM, their mandatory legal representatives in the first part of the procedure (Caritas, HEKS, RBS, or SOS Ticino depending on the asylum region) resign despite the very short appeal deadline of 5 working days. During this delay, the asylum seekers often contact us, wanting their decision checked/revised juidicially or requesting to be heard again. We then file appeals against return decisions to Dublin states where there are realistically no chances for asylum (eg. Croatia, Poland, Bulgaria, the former solely granting asylum to 21 people in 2023) or where the circumstances to live are very dire and declared as inhuman by many NGOs and some courts abroad for asylum seekers. This also concerns cases of people who received some sort of status in a European country, but suffer from inhuman conditions, as it is for refugees in Greece or Hungary). 

If the appeal deadline has passed and we receive substantial medical reports, we may prepare a reconsideration request with them, giving that the medical  situation of the clients has significantly changed since the negative decision for the SEM to reassess the case. 

For any submission, consult our case overview, where you find our most recent submissions sorted by type of submission/country/gender/singular or plural. The latest submission which ticks all the boxes of your case may serve as a template. Read the negative decision, the interview (in Dublin cases this is the so-called "persönliches Gespräch") and the existing medical reports carefully to write down the facts of the case. For the subsumption and legal explanations, the following text module document may help you. If there are any questions, please always  reach out to your team leaders or the office team on Slack or via mail at any stage of writing the submission. 

Our office team leads the communication with clients, so if there are any open questions concerning the facts of the case, check in with them.  They will also let the clients know after we submitted and give them further explanations if needed.