documentation and justification for the designation of Türkiye as a "safe third country" in the reasoning of the joint ministerial decision, which cited limited international sources “without specifically evaluating the information contained therein against the criteria set forth in the law, so as to substantiate the legal requirements for the designation”. Moreover, in related decisions issued by the same Plenary of the Council of State concerning individual cases brought before it, it was ruled that the individual decisions of the Independent Appeals Committees rejecting the applicants on the ground that they had entered Greece from Türkiye should be annulled. As noted, "[s]ince it is apparent from the information in the file that Türkiye has generally suspended the readmission of applicants for international protection to its territory since March 2020, the competent Greek authorities cannot, as the Court of Justice held in its judgment of 4 October 2024 in Case C-134/23, reject applications for international protection as inadmissible on the basis of Article 33(1)(b) of the ECHR. 2(c) of Directive 2013/32/EU and the corresponding provision of national law on the ground that Turkey is a safe third country." The application for annulment of the JMD was initially submitted before the Greek Council of State (CoS) in 2022 and was discussed on 11 March 2022. 530 In a decision issued on 3 February 2023, 531 the CoS had referred a question to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 38 Directive 2013/32/EU. The majority opinion of the CoS had considered that it is not possible to designate a third country as safe if the readmission of the applicant to that country does not appear to be possible, as in view of Article 18 of the Charter, this would be contrary to “the purported objective of the Directive”, as set out in recital 18, “to safeguard rapid examination of applications for international protection insofar as possible (see CJEU, C-556/17 Torubarov, 29 July 2019, paragraph 53)”. As noted, “[a] contrary reading would merely prolong the duration of examination of the submitted application for international protection and uncertainty on the applicant as regards the status of their stay in the country where they submitted an application, without excluding the risk of their refoulement to a country where they risk facing persecution (mutatis mutandis European Commission on Human Rights, A.H. [Harabi] v. the Netherlands, App No 10798/84, 5 March 1986) and the possibility of disruption in international relations of states”.532 The decision included two dissenting opinions on whether the non-implementation of readmission should be taken into consideration at the time of issuance of an individual decision on the asylum application assessing whether Türkiye is a safe third country, or at the time of executing the return decision and not before including this country in the national list of safe third countries. Given that reasonable doubts arose as to the meaning of Article 38 of the Directive, the Court postponed its final judgement and formulated preliminary questions to the CJEU. In particular, the CoS had asked whether: ❖ the provisions of Article 38 of Directive 2013/32 precluded a State from designating, by an act of general application, a third country as a safe, when that country had already previously suspended in practice the readmission of applicants to its territory. ❖ alternatively, whether that condition of possibility of readmission to the third country ought to be examined before the adoption of an individual decision rejecting an application for international 530 531 532 GCR, Εκδικάστηκε ενώπιον του ΣτΕ η αίτηση ακύρωσης της Απόφασης με την οποία η Τουρκία χαρακτηρίστηκε ασφαλής τρίτη χώρα, 15 March 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/365HUJ9. Plenary of the Council of State, Decision no 177/2023, 3 February 2022, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3Gs6GSc. As further noted: ‘The view that the possibility of entry or readmission of a foreign applicant for protection to a third country constitutes a condition for the designation of a third country as safe has, besides, been set out in soft law texts of the Council of Europe (Committee of Ministers Recommendation R(97)22 and Guidelines of 1 July 2009) and has been supported by part of the international law doctrine (in particular Stephen H. Legomsky, Secondary Refugee Movements and the Return of Asylum Seekers to Third Countries: The Meaning of Effective Protection, International Journal of Refugee Law, 2003, p. 567 et seq.), while it has been adopted by courts of other European Union Member States (see Dutch Council of State, decision 201609584/1/V3 of 13 December 2017). Furthermore, the assessment of fulfilment of the possibility of entry or readmission of the foreigner to the safe third country encompasses an examination of both the legal framework in said country (i.e. potential undertaking of a related legal obligation on the part of the third country) and compliance of the third country with its undertaken legal obligations in practice. The above observations lead to the conclusion that, where a Member State establishes a national list of generally safe third countries by making use of the discretion afforded by Article 38(2) of the Directive, it may not, for reasons of rapid conclusion of the examination of applications for international protection as mentioned above, make a regulatory designation of a third country as safe where the fulfilment of the aforementioned condition – the possibility of entry or readmission to said country – is not assessed on both its aforementioned limbs.[…].’ 113