The complete decision can be found here.

The two brothers arrived in Greece by boat from Türkiye in March 2022 and applied for asylum on Leros. Their applications were rejected on the grounds that Türkiye is a ‘Safe Third Country,’ and they were later detained and transferred to the Kos Pre-Removal Detention Centre. In June, Equal Rights filed a legal remedy against their detention before the Administrative Court of Rhodes on the basis that they could not be returned to Türkiye. The Court accepted our claim that their detention was unlawful but ordered that our clients remain in detention until they could provide proof of permanent accommodation on Kos – a clear misunderstanding of the law and an evidently unlawful decision.

EU and domestic law allow asylum seekers to file a subsequent (second) application if they can present new reasons for applying for international protection. Using the Court’s decision as new evidence, we filed subsequent applications on behalf of the two brothers in August. We argued that the authorities must examine the substance of their asylum claims because, based on the Court’s decision, it was obvious that they could not be returned to Türkiye.

The asylum service on Kos accepted our arguments and concluded that:

"After a comparative and overall consideration of the grounds invoked by the applicant in his application for international protection […] the claims can be considered new and substantial. In particular, given the existence of the decision of the - Administrative Court of Rhodes in which, on the basis of the personalized judgment, it is accepted that the applicant cannot be returned to Turkey, as no returns are carried out and the subsequent application should be considered admissible as the claims presented by the applicant are new and substantial (inability to return to Turkey) and his application should be examined on the merits, taking into account Art.. 91, para. 5 4939/2022.”

Last week, our clients were finally released from detention and granted refugee status.

These two cases mark the first time that the Greek Asylum Service on Kos – and, as far as we are aware, anywhere in Greece – has acknowledged that asylum seekers who cannot be returned to Türkiye have the right to have their cases examined on the substance and merits. During the more than two years where there have been no returns to Türkiye, lawyers, advocates, and European institutions have called on Greece to ensure that asylum seekers who are subject to Safe Third Country practices have full access to the asylum procedure in line with EU and Greek law. Until now, the Asylum Service has refused to do so unless applicants have been outside of Türkiye for more than one year. However, this practice ignores the clear language of the law and traps people in a legal limbo that leaves them vulnerable to homelessness, exploitation, and unlawful detention. Now, we finally have a decision that states what has been clear to us all along: as long as there are no returns, asylum seekers must have full access to the asylum procedure, regardless of their nationality or when they left Türkiye.

The decisions in these cases are a positive first step in the broader fight to challenge the unlawful Safe Third Country practices in Greece. However, they must also come with a genuine shift in practice. We appreciate that our clients were granted status and released, but they should never have been rejected and detained in the first place, and their detention came at an enormous cost to their physical and mental health. An unlawful practice that is only corrected when lawyers intervene in individual cases cuts at the foundation of the EU and treats human beings as objects of a deterrent political agenda. This must stop.