396 Social & Legal Studies 34(3) Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the editors, Michel Vols, Vladislava Stoyanova, Karin Åberg and all participants to the seminar on ‘Housing and Social Control A legal Evaluation’, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in June 2022 for their comments on drafts of this paper. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (grant number 016.Veni.195.128). ORCID iD C.H. (Lieneke) Slingenberg https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3827-6104 Notes 1 A report from Refugee Support Aegean and PRO ASYL indicates that the gates are closed between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. (Refugee Support Aegean and PRO ASYL, 2023). 2 See Article 7 (2) Decision 25.0/118832 of the General Secretary of Reception of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, Gov. Gazette 3191/B/ 20.7.21, cited in: Asylum Information Database (2024). See also: General Regulation on Islands’ CCACs’ Operation – Decision of the General Secretary of Reception of Asylum Seekers, FEK 25.0/118832, cited in: Greek Council for refugees and Oxfam (2022). 3 See: letter of 25 October 2021 from Head of the Task Force Migration Management, Beate Gminder, available here: https://www.feantsa.org/en/news/2021/12/13/joint-campaign-improveconditions-for-migrants-asylum-seekers-and-refugees-in-greece-now?bcParent=26 (accessed 27 January 2025). 4 For this research, only case law about confinement of migrants has been used, as the Court has established a particular line of case law for that context in the cases of Ilias and Ahmed and Z.A. and others. For the selection of relevant case law, these cases have been the starting point. In these cases, the Court refers to J.R. and others for the issue of semi-open reception centres. Additional case law has been selected by using the application numbers of Ilias and Ahmed and, in a separate search of J.R. and others, as a text search in the HUDOC database, and selecting the filter ‘article 5’. 5 This was confirmed in the later decisions in EctHR 1 February 2022, no. 37325/17 (N.A. and other v. Hungary) and ECtHR 17 May 2022, no. 34883/17 (A.S. and others v. Hungary). In W. v. Romaine, the Court decided that a two hour confinement in a transit zone in order to check the entry conditions did not amount to a deprivation of liberty (ECtHR 13 April 2021, no. 33036/18). 6 See: ECtHR 2 March 2021, no. 36037/17 (R.R. and others v. Hungary). With reference to this case, article 5 was also found to be violated as regards confinement in the Röszke transit centre, without any further discussion or reference to the facts in: ECtHR 24 February 2022, no. 73860/ 17 (M.B.K. and others v. Hungary); ECtHR 2 June 2022, no. 38967/17 (H.M. and others v. Hungary); ECtHR 9 June 2022, no. 37327/17 (A.A.A. and others v. Hungary); and ECtHR