nam 22 uu 4500 10.59704/56c59c1abf78687a DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 231220s2023||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.59704/56c59c1abf78687a doi eng 342 23 Michková, Karolina Author aut (orcid)0009-0006-0841-2669 Between Return and Protection - The ECJ Mixes Up Czechia's Return Procedure Michková, Karolina Verfassungsblog 2023-12-20 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier Last month, the ECJ responded to a preliminary reference of the Regional Court in Brno concerning Czechia’s so-called return procedure. The ECJ ruled that a third country national cannot be subject to a return decision if they applied for international protection and a first-instance decision on that application has not yet been delivered. Curiously, the ECJ thereby answered a question it had not actually been asked, while contradicting the conclusion of the Grand Chamber of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court (“SAC”), rendered shortly before. While the ECJ’s ruling will nonetheless improve some of the problems that have inhered within Czechia’s approach to international protection and return procedures, its failure to answer the referred question constitutes a missed opportunity to facilitate a productive dialogue with referring courts in an area of law where preliminary references have been exceedingly rare. CC BY-SA 4.0 Asylum Proceedings Czech Republic Czechia migrant rights preliminary reference return procedures Dřínovská, Natálie Author aut (orcid)0000-0002-5874-0285 Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/between-return-and-protection/ raw object