The European Court of Human Rights said in a statement this week that “Malta needs to adopt new measures to improve the conditions of detained asylum seekers and allow them to obtain speedy review of the lawfulness of their detention.”
Details of a Chamber judgment made public this week in the case of Suso Musa v. Malta (application no. 42337/12), which is not final, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights; and,
a violation of Article 5 § 4 (right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court) of the Convention
The Court said that the case concerned an alleged Sierra Leonean asylum seeker who complained in particular that his detention had been unlawful and that he had not had an effective means to have the lawfulness of his detention reviewed.
The Court found that Mr Suso Musa’s detention preceding the determination of his asylum request had been arbitrary. “Indeed, the conditions of his place of detention had been highly problematic from the standpoint of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment).
“Moreover, it had taken the authorities an unreasonable amount of time to determine whether the applicant should have been allowed to remain in Malta. As regards the period of detention following the determination of Mr Suso Musa’s asylum request, it found that the deportation proceedings had not been prosecuted with due diligence. Moreover, the applicant had not been allowed to have a speedy review of the lawfulness of his detention.”
The Court considered that the problems detected in this case could give rise to further similar applications. Therefore, it requested the Maltese authorities to establish a mechanism to allow individuals seeking a review of the lawfulness of their immigration detention to obtain a determination of their claim within a reasonable time-limit.
It further recommended Malta to take the necessary steps to improve the conditions and shorten the length of detention of asylum seekers.
The principal facts from the Court said that the applicant, Ibrahim Suso Musa, allegedly a Sierra Leone national, entered Malta in an irregular manner by boat in April 2011. Upon arrival, he was arrested by the police and detained.
“His asylum application was rejected in a decision upheld in April 2012 and he remained in detention with a view to his removal until March 2013.”
Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment.
If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.
Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution [1].
File photograph – AFM