relocate detainees without following certain procedures.134 The EU must intervene in ensuring
Greece does not violate the Directive and that it does not arbitrarily relocate applicants to Turkey,
especially because it is not a Member of the EU and will very likely not uphold any of the terms
and guarantees in the Directives.
Least Coercive Measures
The Jesuit Refugee Services (“JRS”) defines alternatives to detention as “any policy,
practice or legislation that allows asylum seekers and migrants to live in the community with
freedom of movement… while they undertake to resolve their migration status and/or while
awaiting removal from the territory.”135 Article 9 of Resolution 1707 provided a list of
alternative solutions to detention that could be used alone or in combination with each other.
These alternatives have been shown to be more humane and substantially cheaper than detention
centers. The CDDH, the CoE’s steering committee, should, on a trial basis, review these
alternatives via reports from state parties to see if these alternatives are in fact better while still
working on other alternatives by December 2017.
The EU should amend the Directives in order to ensure that “less coercive measures” are
provided for by each State’s domestic legislation. The EU should formulate a list of potential
least coercive measures as alternatives to detention. States should implement each measure in its
domestic legislation, so long as its capacities allow. Alongside the list, the EU should include a
definition of what is considered to be a “less coercive measures,” explaining that such measures
should not amount to detention, corporal restriction of movement, etc.
134
Directive 2008/115/EC, art. 47.
Katy Siegfried, Alternatives to immigration detention prove cheaper, more humane, IRIN (Aug. 30, 2013),
http://www.irinnews.org/analysis/2013/08/30/alternatives-immigration-detention-prove-cheaper-more-humane
135
40
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