Case summaries

1. A change of the destination country in a return decision by an administrative authority should be regarded as a new return decision requiring an effective remedy in compliance with Article 47 CFREU.

2. The national legislation providing for a safe transit country ground applicable in the present case is contrary to EU law.

3. The obligation imposed on a third-country national to remain permanently in a closed and limited transit zone, within which their movement is limited and monitored, and which the latter cannot legally leave voluntarily, in any direction whatsoever, constitutes a deprivation of liberty, characterised as "detention" within the meaning of the Reception Conditions (RCD) and Returns Directives (RD).

4. Neither the RCD nor Article 43 of the Asylum Procedures Directive authorise detention in transit zones for a period exceeding four weeks.

5. Detention under the RCD and the RD must comply with the relevant guarantees under EU law including being based on a reasoned detention decision; consisting of a measure of last resort, following an individualised assessment of the case, its necessity and proportionality; and effective judicial review should be available. An applicant for international protection cannot be held in detention solely on the ground that they cannot support themselves. Where detention is found to contravene EU law, domestic courts may release the applicant and order the authorities to provide accommodation in line with the RCD provisions. They are empowered to do so, even if they have no clear jurisdiction under national law.

An asylum seeker is entitled to request the temporary termination of his or her stay in an accommodation centre and to seek alternative accommodation if compliance with the distancing rules of the Saxon Corona Protection Ordinance is not possible in the centre.

The High Court has issued a judgment following an application for an interim order. The matter concerns the accommodation of asylum-seekers who display Covid-19 symptoms, who bears the responsibility for accommodating asylum-seekers who are symptomatic, and the communication of policy and practice in this area.

The Court concluded on the immediate release of an Egyptian national from detention. The judgment referred to the detention conditions for vulnerable persons that suffer from serious health conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Confinement of asylum applicants in an airport transit zone is contrary to Art. 5 § 1 (f) in the absence of any domestic legal basis for the applicants’ deprivation of liberty.

Confinement of asylum seekers left to their own devices in airport transit zones under the control of border authorities, without unimpeded access to shower or cooking facilities, outdoor exercise and medical or social assistance amount to degrading and inhuman conditions under Art. 3 ECHR if protracted for a long time. 

Given the condition of Greek health care, a person with a neurological condition, who requires medical follow-up and who has a family, may rightfully invoke Article 3 ECHR to block her, and her family’s, transfer to Greece. 

The applicant’s complaint is based on the allegation that her father had not left Finland voluntarily but had been forced to return to Iraq because of the decisions already taken by the Finnish authorities. Those decisions, therefore, engaged the responsibility of Finland for having exposed the applicant’s father to a real risk of death, which ended up happening. Finland’s actions amounted to a violation of Articles 2 and 3 ECHR.

The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) must carry out an individualised examination to determine whether there are substantial grounds for believing that the asylum procedure of the Member State where the applicant shall be transferred to has systemic weaknesses that would entail a risk of inhuman treatment or chain deportation.

Detention in police stations, places that by their very nature are designed to accommodate people for very short durations, may amount to degrading and inhuman conditions under Art. 3 ECHR if protracted for a long time.

Detention of a person with a view to deportation is contrary to Art. 5 § 1 (f) if unlawful under the Convention or domestic law.