Asylum seekers and third-country nationals illegally detained without a valid reason at the Serbian-Hungarian border in the Roszke transit area must be released immediately . This was established by a sentence of the EU Court of Justice.
In the context of an urgent procedure, the Grand Chamber of the Court ruled on the case of some Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers who arrived in Hungary through Serbia.
When they arrived in the Roszke transit area, along the Serbian-Hungarian border, they introduced their requests for international protection, which were later deemed inadmissible by Hungary, which established their return to Serbia. The Balkan country, in turn, refused to welcome migrants back to its territory. At this point, the Hungarian authorities, instead of examining asylum applications, only changed their decision stating that these people should have returned to their country of origin.
Afghan and Iranian citizens have appealed before the Hungarian justice both against this decision (appeal rejected), and against the lack of links between their situation and the fact of being detained in the transit area on the Serbian-Hungarian border, where they are located currently. The EU Court of Justice has first established that the placement in the Roszke transit area of asylum seekers or third country nationals subject to a return decision must be considered "detention". According to European legislation, no asylum seeker who is the subject of a return decision can only be detained on the basis that he would not be able to support himself. Similarly, the EU directives are opposed to the detention of asylum seekers subject to a return decision without there being a reasoned decision and without having examined the "necessity and proportionality" of this measure. Furthermore, this detention cannot "under any circumstances exceed four weeks from the date of introduction of the asylum application".
The Court also ruled that a measure such as the detention of a person in a transit area should be capable of being subject to judicial review. If, after this check, the judicial authority considers that detention is contrary to Union law, it must have the power to replace the administrative authority and pronounce the immediate release of the detained persons, or possibly the application of alternative measures.
