"[…] The situation is very hard here, and when we want to ask for asylum or about the procedure they don’t really respond for our questions clearly. He said yes exactly, it don’t have access to asylum and don’t have access to the information or something." Abdul, Corinth Source: Xanthi PRDC, MIT respondent Access to Legal Services to Challenge Detention Decisions In general, access to legal counselling in PRDCs on mainland Greece was extremely limited. European law lays down the requirement for Member States to offer the possibility to request free legal assistance and representation for asylum seekers in detention to challenge their detention decision,[203] which is also transposed in Greek law.[204] In practice however, there is no functional free legal aid system for asylum seekers established to challenge their detention decision.[205] As a result, multiple respondents reported paying non-standardised fees for private lawyers, of up to 2,000 euro, for appointments over the phone, and at times, with little follow up. Those who could not access lawyers or afford lawyer’s fees, were left without an effective possibility to challenge their detention orders, which is in contradiction to European and Greek law. For detainees in facilities without access to mobile phones, for example in Tavros (Petrou Ralli), this indicates a further barrier to reaching legal services when they are not sufficiently provided within the centre. Of those who were able to afford the expensive fees for a private lawyer, several reported being released, particularly respondents of Afghan nationality who’s asylum claims were rejected on the grounds of inadmissibility. Others specifically detailed that they paid lawyers and individuals to provide a host address in order for them to be released, evidencing that they are not at risk of absconding. This reiterates that people are detained unlawfully, and are just unable to reach the legal support they need to object the decision. In its report from both 2018 and 2020 visits to Greece, the CPT issued formal recommendations to the Greek authorities to take concrete action to ensure that all foreign nationals who are deprived of liberty by the police under aliens’ legislation are granted the rights of notification of custody, access to a lawyer are placed in a position to effectively exercise this rights. Yet according to our research, two years later, this has not been implemented. Corinth presented the lowest levels of access to legal support in our research, corroborated by ERBB’s research. 52