VI.2.5.1 Detention

Main Debate

Is detention of asylum seekers consistent with EU Member States’ international refugee and human rights obligations?

Main Points

  • The use of detention as a deterrent or punishment, in addition to containment

Different legal standards governing

  1. detention of asylum-seekers
  2. detention of people with no right to remain, pending removal and
  3. criminal detention, including for irregular entry

EU documents

  1. Directive 2013/33/EU of 26 June 2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down standards for the reception of applicants for international protection (recast), OJ L 180/96, 29 June 2013, Articles 7, 8 & 9.
  2. Directive 2008/115/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals, OJ L 348, 24 December 2008, Chapter IV, ‘Detention for the purposes of removal’.

UNHCR

  1. UNHCR, ’UNHCR Comments on the European Commission's amended recast proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council laying down standards for the reception of asylum-seekers’, July 2012, (COM (2011) 320 final, 1 June 2011).
  2. UNHCR, ’Submission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Case of Alaa Al-Tayyar Abdelhakim v. Hungary’, 30 March 2012, Application No. 13058/11,– concerning detention of asylum-seekers for the purposes of expulsion; prolonged detention; risk of refoulement.
  3. UNHCR, ’Submission by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Case of Said v. Hungary’, 30 March 2012, Application No. 13457/11, – concerning detention of asylum-seekers, including those transferred to Hungary under the Dublin II Regulation, for the purposes of expulsion; prolonged detention; risk of refoulement.

Cases

  1. Alexandre Achughbabian v. Préfet du Val-de-Marne, C-329/11, Court of Justice of the European Union, 6 December 2012.
  2. Said and Al-Tayyar, Applications 13457/11 and 13058/11, European Court of Human Rights, 23 October 2012.
  3. Saïd Shamilovich Kadzoev v. Direktsia ‘Migratsia’ pri Ministerstvo na vatreshnite raboti, Case C-357/09, 30 November 2009.
  4. Saadi v. United Kingdom, 13229/03, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 29 January 2008.

Readings

Core

  1. D. Wilsher, Immigration Detention. Law, History, Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2011), chapter 4.
  2. Statewatch, ‘Analysis on the Returns Directive’, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, 9 June 2008.
  3. STEPS Study for the European Parliament, ‘The Conditions in Centres for Third Country Nationals (detention camps, open centres as well as transit centres and transit zones) with a Particular Focus on Provisions and Facilities for Persons with Special Needs in the 25 EU Member States’ IP/C/LIBE/IC/2006-181, December 2007.

Extended

  1. K. Hailbronner, ‘Detention of Asylum Seekers’, European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 7, no. 9 (2007), pp. 159–172.
  2. E. Mincheva, ‘Case Report on Kadzoev, 30 November 2009’, European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 3 (2010), pp. 361–371.
  3. C. Smyth, ‘Is the Right of the Child to Liberty Safeguarded in the Common European Asylum System?’, European Journal of Migration and Law, vol. 15, no. 2 (2013), p. 111-136. 

 VI.2.5.1 DetentionVI.2.5.1 Detention