CJEU advocate general: Hungary ‘unlawfully detaining’ asylum seekers in transit zone – UPDATE
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An advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said on Thursday that accommodating asylum seekers in the transit zone on the Hungarian-Serbian border near the town of Röszke was equivalent to unlawful detention.
Priit Pikamae issued an opinion regarding complaints raised by two Afghan and two Iranian nationals, who had been assigned the Röszke transit zone as temporary accommodation in 2018 and 2019 and had been staying there since.
Hungarian authorities had previously rejected the complainants’ asylum requests, saying they had entered the country from Serbia, a safe transit country.
After Serbia refused to readmit them into its territory, the Hungarian authorities expelled the asylum seekers back to their homelands. Until then, the Röszke transit zone was assigned as temporary accommodation. The asylum seekers then brought a lawsuit to the Szeged court of labour and administration, saying their housing there constituted unlawful detention and asking for their asylum requests to be re-examined.
Reviewing the case ahead of the CJEU, Pikamae said in an opinion that
asylum seekers placed in the transit zone, “are physically cut off from the outside world and forced to live in a situation of isolation”.
They are deprived of their freedom of movement, he said. Meanwhile, “departure from the transit zone would, for asylum seekers, entail renunciation of the possibility of obtaining the international protection sought,” Pikamae said.