Following legal action initiated by Equal Rights Beyond Borders, the Court accepted the suspension requests filed on behalf of asylum seekers from Sudan and Yemen — in three out of five similar applications submitted by our team. These actions were brought before the Court after the unlawful suspension of asylum registrations for three months. The Court underlined the fundamental principle of refugee law – the right to seek asylum and have the application assessed.

According to the Court,

“[…] the immediate enforcement of the return measure and the consequent removal of the applicant from the country would deprive him of the possibility of effective access to the asylum procedure, and would therefore cause him at least irreparable harm, should the pending application for annulment before the Court be successful.”

“The Court’s rulings send a clear message; a person’s right to apply for asylum cannot be hindered nor suspended”, said Ioanna Pavlou, a lawyer at Equal Rights.

All these decisions follow the five positive temporary orders issued in September (read more here) and the remaining two suspension orders are expected to be issued in the coming days.

Although the suspension of asylum procedures ended on 14 October, our legal actions continue and we expect the Court to have a final decision on the illegality of the law within the next months.

Already on 16 October, the Greek Ombudsman submitted the concluding remarks into the suspension of asylum applications to the competent ministers, following communications from NGOs, including Equal Rights and HIAS Greece letter.  In a letter to the Greek Ombudsman dated 19 August, we detailed the illegality of our clients’ detention, their deprivation of the right to register asylum applications, and the inadequate living conditions inside the Pre-Removal Detention Center of Amygdaleza, and requested an on-site inspection. “The conditions described to us by our clients were not in compliance with the standards of a state governed by the rule of law, a modern liberal democracy. Greece must stop punishing asylum seekers and using detention as a tool of deterrence and not as a measure of last resort”, said Anastasia Balta, lawyer at Equal Rights.

The decisions of the Court and the Intervention of the Ombudsman send a clear message: populist so-called “migration policies” violate the rule of law. In times, in which more and more European Member States insinuate “States of Emergencies” to deprive protection seekers of their very rights, this is a welcoming and important sign.

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Contact: Christina Svana, press@equal-rights.org