388 Social & Legal Studies 34(3) Accordingly, empirical research carried out since the opening of the CCACs by different organizations and in different years consistently includes testimony by residents of the CCACs that describe the centres as prisons. Residents refer to the high level of security, the regular checks and controls and the impossibility of leaving the centre. While the European Commission underlines the open character of the centres and argues that fences are only necessary to ensure security and safety of residents and staff,3 residents and NGO’s underline the interferences with residents’ autonomy and freedom. The next section will analyse the legal framework as regards such interferences with personal liberty. Deprivation of Liberty in Human Rights Law Research cited above showed how the Greek reception centres are experienced by their inhabitants as prisons. This raises the question whether they are also legally qualified as such. Does the curfew measure, combined with the variety of serious surveillance measures and the impossibility to leave the island on which the centres are located, amount to a deprivation of liberty within the meaning of Article 5 ECHR? This section analyses case law of the ECtHR in order to examine how this Court would answer that question. Relevant case law has been selected on the basis of a text search in HUDOC, the Courts’ database4, and analysed using ‘classical case law analysis’ (Gerards et al., 2023). The section ends with comparing that to the concept of detention as used by other institutions. The fundamental nature of Article 5 ECHR is often underlined by the ECtHR. For example, in the Grand Chamber judgment in Buzadji v. the Republic of Moldova, the ECtHR held (para 84): Article 5 of the Convention is, together with Articles 2, 3 and 4, in the first rank of the fundamental rights that protect the physical security of the individual (…), and as such its importance is paramount. This paramount importance is visible in three strands of reasoning that, according to the Court, run through its case law on Article 5 ECHR: [T]he exhaustive nature of the exceptions, which must be interpreted strictly (…) and which do not allow for the broad range of justifications under other provisions (Articles 8 to 11 of the Convention in particular); the repeated emphasis on the lawfulness of the detention, both procedural and substantive, requiring scrupulous adherence to the rule of law (…); and the importance of the promptness or speediness of the requisite judicial controls (under Article 5 §§ 3 and 4) (…). Because of the strict and exhaustive nature of the exceptions (contrary to other ECHR provisions) and the emphasis on the lawfulness of the detention and the promptness of judicial control, it is relevant to examine the applicability of Article 5 ECHR to the measures imposed on asylum seekers in the Greek reception centres, even though these measures could also be examined in relation to other rights laid down in the Convention