37
III. Development of
Detention Practices
outside PRDC (CCAC)
EU migration policies and laws, many of which
seek to contain asylum seekers to closed
centres and undermine their most basic human
rights.
The first edition of this report limited its scope
to the detention practices and policies in the
PRDC. On its face, the situation has improved
in the past 12 months—asylum seekers are no
longer detained upon arrival, the maximum
period of detention has been reduced from 18
to six months, and the number of people
detained in the PRDC is at an all-time low.
Alongside these reforms, however, have
emerged new forms of detention on Kos that
continue to deprive migrants’ of their
fundamental right to liberty. This section
introduces three of these policies:
between deprivation of liberty, i.e., detention,
and a mere restriction of liberty. Detention is
defined in EU asylum law as the “confinement
of an applicant by a Member State within a
particular place, where the applicant is
deprived of his or her freedom of movement.”86
From this, the CJEU has held “that detention
assumes a deprivation, and not a mere
restriction, of freedom of movement, which is
characterised by the fact that the person
concerned is isolated from the rest of the
⎯ a 25-day restriction of freedom
population in a particular place.”87 Detention is
⎯ and use of the new CCAC (D).
Each of these issues could be reports on their
own and this section does not attempt to
provide in-depth reporting or an extensive
legal analysis on each issue. However, we have
decided to introduce these issues in this update
for two reasons. First, all three practices
fundamentally restrict asylum seekers’
freedom of movement, and in most cases
amount to a deprivation of liberty, and so
should be included in any report on detention
practices on Kos. Second, the situation on Kos
in many ways serves as the blueprint for future
Art. 2(h) Directive 2013/33/EU.
CJEU, Judgment of 14/05/2020 - C-924/19 PPU
and C-925/19 PPU - FMS et al, para. 217.
88
Council of Europe, Recommendation Rec(2003)5
of the Committee of Ministers to Member States
on measures of detention of asylum seekers
08/04/2003, available at: https://nxnt.link/tS7Ph.
87
European legal frameworks distinguish
⎯ Covid-19 quarantine (B),
imposed on new arrivals (C),
86
A. Legal Framework
similarly described in the recommendations of
the Council of Europe88 and the detention
guidelines of UNHCR,89 on which the legal
definition in the Reception Conditions
Directive is based.90 In the latter, detention is
defined as “the deprivation of liberty or
confinement in a closed place which an
asylum-seeker is not permitted to leave at will,
including, though not limited to, prisons or
purpose-built detention, closed reception or
holding centres or facilities.”
From a human rights perspective, the ECtHR
has consistently held that the “difference
between deprivation and restriction of liberty
UNHCR, Detention Guidelines - Guidelines on
Applicable Criteria and Standards Concerning the
Detention of Asylum Seekers and Alternatives to
Detention, 2012, available at:
https://bit.ly/3dp2UL7.
90
CJEU, Judgment of 14/05/2020 - C-924/19 PPU
and C-925/19 PPU - FMS et al, para 218.
89
‘Still detained and forgotten’ – Update on Detention Policies, Practices, and Conditions on Kos 2022/23