article 46 of the EBCG Regulation. Human rights organisations and defenders bringing to light and/or supporting pushback victims have continued facing defamation, intimidation and criminalisation, including through prosecution on criminal charges. As highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders in her March 2023 report, “human rights defenders promoting and protecting the rights of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, including human rights lawyers, humanitarian workers, volunteers and journalists, have been subjected to smear campaigns, a changing regulatory environment, threats and attacks and the misuse of criminal law against them to a shocking degree”. v Access to the asylum procedure: Access to asylum on the mainland remains highly problematic. Since September 2022, persons who want to submit an asylum application on the mainland should initially book an appointment through an online platform and then present themselves in one of the two registration facilities in Diavata (Thessaloniki) or Malakasa (Attica) to complete registration of their application.5 However, access to the online platform is not always possible, while between May and August 2023, the platform stopped operating, thus making access to the procedure impossible in practice. Delays with respect to the scheduling of registration appointments have also continued being reported at least with respect to Malakasa RIC up to early 2024. In conjunction, these obstacles result in applicants have no access to their rights, nor being protected from detention. Lastly, upon presenting themselves at the registration facilities, applicants may be subject to de facto detention for a period up to 25 days, contrary to the requirements of Art. 8 of the Reception Directive. Access to the asylum procedure for persons detained in pre-removal centres has also remained a matter of concern. v Subsequent applications: Subsequent applications lodged after the first subsequent application are subject to a fee of EUR 100 per applicant and, in case of families, EUR 100 per family member. Greece is the only EU Member State which requires payment of a fee to lodge a subsequent application, thereby raising concerns as to access to the asylum procedure. An Application for Annulment of the relevant JMD has been filled by GCR and RSA before the Council of State which, following postponement, was still pending at the end of the year. v Processing times: The number of pending asylum applications has increased by close to 50% in 2023, compared in 2022, yet the lack of detailed data on examination timeframes makes it impossible to assess the extent of delays in 2023. At a general level, the procedure’s duration has been reported on average at less than 2.5 months by the Minister of Migration and Asylum in October 2023. Yet, in lack of a breakdown, this data is likely to also include, inter alia, applications that have been speedily rejected under the “safe third country concept” and, based on the categorisation of first instance decisions followed by the MoMA, also implicit/explicit withdrawals, thus making this an indicator of questionable use. This is particularly the case considering ongoing delays of months and at times of even more than year only with respect to the conduct of asylum interviews reported at least in Malakasa RIC and Ritsona camp in March 2024.6 v Legal assistance: No state-funded free legal aid is provided at first instance, nor does the law establish an obligation to provide it. A state-funded legal aid scheme operates for the appeal procedure, on the basis of a registry of lawyers managed by the Asylum Service. However, obstacles in accessing free legal aid continued to be reported, inter alia because of the digitalisation of the procedure and the fictitious service of negative first instance decisions. The number of appellants who received free legal assistance by the State was not made available in 2023. 5 6 This does not apply in the case of UAMs, family members or fully registered asylum seekers, and persons having legally entered the country, who can lodge an application for asylum at the closest competent RAO or AAU. Solomon, Lost for Words: Lack of interpreters puts asylum seekers’ lives on hold in Greece”, 27 March 2023, available at: https://tinyurl.com/247fkvv6 23