Digital pushbacks at European borders: an ongoing threat to the rule of law in the Schengen Area

Abstract

This article paints a less-known picture of pushbacks. One that does not take place in a remote forest of Eastern Europe but in a border guards office in Northern and Western Europe. The exchange of asylum refusal decisions and entry and residence bans between State Members of the Schengen area through the Schengen information system brings a systematic risk for individuals in the context of the rule of law crisis. Hungary will be taken as an example of a country recording pushbacks decisions in the Schengen information system. Digital pushback is the perpetuation of the infringement of EU law at the external border, amounting to a pushback, by another Member State because of information exchanged about a third-country national. This research investigates if the current legal standards, in the jurisprudence of the CJEU, on the protection of the right to an effective remedy, Article 47 of the charter of the EU, are adapted to prevent digital pushbacks.