The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Cyprus violated Article 5, paragraph 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to liberty, in a case brought by a Moroccan asylum seeker (referred to as K.A.) against the Republic of Cyprus.
The Court (Fifth Section) unanimously decided yesterday to award the applicant 5,000 euros in compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
The complaint against the Republic of Cyprus was filed with the Court on February 13, 2025, by the Moroccan national, K.A., who was born in 1966 and lives in Oroklini.
The application concerns his detention on grounds of national security from January 10, 2019, to February 24, 2020, at the Menogeia Detention Center, as well as the domestic proceedings in which he challenged that detention.
The applicant lodged a complaint under Article 5 § 1 of the Convention regarding the lawfulness of his detention, which he considered, among other things, to be arbitrary due to its duration.
As the Court noted in its judgment, there is no indication that the place or conditions of detention were inappropriate or that the authorities acted in bad faith.
The Court notes a lack of clarity among the domestic authorities regarding the purpose of the applicant’s detention.
It also notes that the authorities already had the necessary information to assess the applicant’s asylum claim and that they might have rejected it on grounds of national security from the day the detention order was issued.
A prompt examination of the applicant’s asylum claim and the issuance of a final decision would serve both the applicant’s interests and those of the State, it adds.
The ECHR ruled that K.A.’s detention was not sufficiently linked to the prevention of illegal entry into the country and that the duration of detention exceeded the time that would normally be necessary for that purpose, noting that the asylum application was not particularly complex, nor had any progress been made in its judicial review.
The Court unanimously held that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, which guarantees the right to liberty.
It ruled that the respondent State must pay the applicant, within three months, the following amounts: 5,000 euros for non-pecuniary damage and 3,750 euros for legal costs.
However, it found that there had been no violation of Article 5 § 4 of the Convention. In other words, the Court rejected the Moroccan’s complaint that the failure to disclose classified information prevented him from effectively challenging the lawfulness of his detention and thus found no a violation of Article 5 § 4, which guarantees the right to judicial review of the lawfulness of detention.
Source: KYPE
