Last Updated on November 5, 2019 by LawEuro
Information Note on the Court’s case-law 214
January 2018
J.R. and Others v. Greece – 22696/16
Judgment 25.1.2018 [Section I]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Inhuman treatment
Conditions of detention in asylum hotspot facilities established under the EU-Turkey Statement: no violation
Article 5
Article 5-1-f
Expulsion
Facts – On 20 March 2016 an agreement on migration between the member States of the European Union and Turkey, entitled the “EU-Turkey Declaration”, entered into force. It provided, under certain conditions, for the return of irregular migrants from Greece to Turkey.
On 21 March 2016 the three applicants, Afghan nationals, arrived on the island of Chios, where they were arrested and placed in the Vial “hotspot” facility (a migrant reception, identification and registration centre). The police chief ordered their detention pending removal to prevent them absconding. On 4 April 2016 their wish to apply for asylum was registered. On 19 April 2016 the director of the Vial centre restricted their freedom of movement with effect from 15 April and for a period of 15 days. Vial became a semi-open facility on 21 April.
The applicants complained in particular about the arbitrary nature of their detention and the conditions in the Vial centre.
Law
Article 5 § 1: The authorities had acted in good faith as regards the applicants’ detention, which had the main aim of guaranteeing their removal. It also sought to prevent them from remaining illegally in Greece and to ensure their identification and registration for the implementation of the EU-Turkey Declaration.
The decisions of 19 April 2016 ordering a restriction of the applicants’ freedom of movement for 15 days from 15 April 2016 had not been notified to the applicants because the authorities had not been able to locate them inside the centre. In any event, it was converted to a semi-open centre on 21 April 2016, thus allowing residents to go out during the day and only obliging them to stay there at night.
The applicants had been detained for one month. Such a period could not in principle be regarded as excessive for the completion of administrative formalities.
Lastly, while an asylum application suspended the enforcement of the removal measure, it did not suspend the detention; domestic law only required that the asylum application be examined with absolute priority. The applicants had been released one month and ten days after expressing their wish to apply for asylum and one month after their registration.
Thus the applicants’ detention was not arbitrary and could not be considered not “lawful” within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 (f) of the Convention.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
Article 3 (substantive limb): The facts of the present case occurred at a time when Greece was experiencing an exceptional and sudden increase in migration which created organisational, logistical and structural difficulties for the Greek authorities. A number of NGOs who visited the Vial centre confirmed that the situation there was chaotic. The Court noted that, in the case of Khlaifia and Others v. Italy ([GC], 16483/12, 15 December 2016, Information Note 202), the Grand Chamber had decided that in the light of the situation of extreme difficulty faced by the Italian authorities at the time, the conditions in the reception centre had not attained a threshold of seriousness such as to be characterised as inhuman or degrading.
In that connection the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), which had twice visited the “hotspots” on the northern Aegean islands in 2016, was not particularly critical about the conditions in the Vial centre. It had reserved its main criticism for problems related to medical care in the centre and hospital, to the inadequate information available on the rights of detainees and asylum-seekers, to the lack of legal assistance, and to the poor quality of drinking water and food. Those problems were not such as to have an excessively harmful effect on the applicants under Article 3 of the Convention. Moreover, neither the CPT, nor the NGOs, nor the parties, had provided information on the alleged overcrowding in the centre, by indicating, for example, the number of square metres generally available in the containers or in the container occupied by the applicants.
In addition, the applicants had only been detained for a short period of thirty days; and the Vial centre in which they had been placed on 21 March 2016 became a semi-open facility on 21 April 2016, thus allowing them to go out during the day.
In those circumstances, the threshold of seriousness for the detention to be characterised as inhuman or degrading had not been attained.
Conclusion: no violation (unanimously).
The Court also found unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 2 because, even supposing that the applicants had received an information brochure, its content had not been such as to enlighten them sufficiently either to the reasons for their arrest or to the remedies available to them.
The Court further found, unanimously, that there had been no violation of Article 34, given that there had been no evidence that the police interview with one of the applicants had been aimed at coercing him into withdrawing or changing his application to the Court or at otherwise impeding the applicants in the effective exercise of their right of individual petition, or that the interview had had such an effect. The authorities of the respondent State could not therefore be regarded as having hindered the applicants’ effective exercise of their right of individual petition.
Article 41: EUR 650 to each applicant in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
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