issued under an “extraordinarily urgent and unforeseeable need to respond to an asymmetrical threat to the security of the country which supersedes the underlying international and EU law rules on the asylum procedure, coupled with absolute and objective inability to process in reasonable time the asylum applications which would have resulted from illegal mass influx into the country.” It added that the adoption of the Decree found “basis in the sovereign right and constitutional duty of the Hellenic Republic to safeguard its integrity.”34 With regard to the legality of the detention orders in question, the Court found that the applicants’ allegation of risks of refoulement under Article 33(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) related to the legality of the authorities’ failure to register their asylum claims rather than that of the detention orders. Regarding the latter, it noted that the applicants posed a risk of absconding given that they (i) did not hold identity documents and (ii) entered the country irregularly amid an “extraordinarily urgent and unforeseeable” situation unfolding since the beginning of March.35 Regrettably, the Court failed to assess the legality of detention and to examine the compliance of the authorities' decisions with national and European law. First, the Court did not examine whether the deprivation of liberty of the applicants satisfies the criteria and conditions set by national law. It erroneously failed to engage with the applicants’ status as “asylum seekers” and thereby examined the lawfulness of the detention orders solely through the prism of return legislation, despite acknowledging that they had expressed the intention to seek international protection; an act triggering the applicability of asylum provisions, as stated above. Second, it did not engage with risks of refoulement contrary to the Refugee Convention and the ECHR raised by the applicants. Third, the Court made no assessment of clear obstacles to a reasonable prospect of return to Turkey, not least due to the constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and disregarded evidence put forward by the applicants to that effect.36 It thus refrained from observing that the continuation of the applicants’ deprivation of liberty did not serve the purpose for which it had been imposed, and refrained from examining its necessity and proportionality. Fourth, it wrongly relied inter alia on lack of documentation to establish a risk of absconding, since in some cases the applicants had presented valid identity documents to the authorities. Finally, it entirely disregarded certain applicants’ acute vulnerability due to conditions such as 8.5 months’ pregnancy, in dereliction of express prohibitions on expelling pregnant women under domestic legislation.37 Crucially, in doing so the Court ran counter to the reasoning of the Council of State, which granted an interim order (προσωρινή διαταγή) to suspend deportation in the case of two mothers facing removal pursuant to the Decree, on the basis of their vulnerability.38 34 35 36 37 38 Administrative Court of Athens, Decisions 358/2020, 359/2020 and 360/2020, 7 April 2020, para 4. Unofficial translation from the author. Ibid. The applications quoted correspondence from the Directorate of Migration Management of the Hellenic Police dated 30 March 2020, which stated that “readmission operations to Turkey have been suspended for an indefinite period of time”, as well as reports of closure of the land border and interruption of air, rail and road connections to Turkey in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak: Kathimerini, ‘Η Τουρκία κλείνει τα σύνορα με Ελλάδα και Βουλγαρία’, 18 March 2020, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/2ylaYLn; CNN, ‘Κορωνοϊός: Τέλος οι πτήσεις από Βρετανία και Τουρκία’, 23 March 2020, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/2XHXUdL. Article 79(1)(e) Law 3386/2005; Article 41 Law 3907/2011. Greek Council for Refugees, ‘Σχόλιο του ΕΣΠ σχετικά με την προσωρινή διαταγή του ΣτΕ’, 31 March 2020, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/2KmLNe9. RSA LEGAL NOTE │ 2020 7