of refugee support and protection as well as their members to register in the established Registry of Greek and Foreign Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the Special Secretariat for the Coordination of Involved Agencies of the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum. NGOs that meet the minimum necessary conditions for participation as provided in the Asylum Code are registered by the competent service. Non-profit organisations, voluntary organisations and any corresponding organisation, Greek or international, that is not registered in the registry, may not participate in the implementation of international protection, immigration and social integration actions within the Greek territory, and in particular in the provision of legal, psychosocial and medical services. The Law also provides of an additional Registry of Members of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) active in matters of international protection, immigration and social integration, in which the members, employees and partners of the above-described categories of organisations active in Greece are registered. The registration of these persons in the Registry and their certification is a necessary condition both for their activity within the Greek territory and for their cooperation with public bodies. In practice employees of NGOs and members whose name is not provided for in the registry are banned from entering places of detention and reception facilities under the Ministry’s responsibility. GCR is aware of several instances when access was refused to interpreters and on occasion lawyers or were obliged to wait for several hours before they were granted permission to enter. Concerning the lawfulness of these new registration requirements, ECRE’s Expert Opinion upon request from the ELENA Coordinator in Greece, published in December 2021,887 emphasises that the registry has been heavily criticised by civil society organisations,888 the Council of Europe,889 and in the context of UN Special Procedures,890 and it has also been the subject of a question at the European Parliament. 891 The criticism focuses on the lack of meaningful public consultation before the adoption of the framework, the excessive requirements for registration/certification, which serves as a precondition for NGOs to be able to operate in Greece in the field of international protection, migration and social inclusion, the introduction of seemingly unlimited discretion to deny registration or remove NGOs from the registry on the basis of vague criteria, and the absence of effective remedies. According to the reports, such a framework can interfere with the freedom of association by establishing a situation of legal uncertainty and restricted guarantees that could create significant obstacles in the free development of NGO activities in Greece. As of October 2021, at least three refugee-assisting organisations have been denied registration. The Greek Ombudsperson has since called for the re-examination of the rejection decision as it found that it resulted in violation of national, EU and international law”.892 An annulment application was lodged by Equal Rights Beyond Border and HIAS Greece before the Council of State against JMD 10616/2020 887 888 889 890 891 892 ECRE, Expert Opinion upon request from the ELENA Coordinator in Greece concerning the lawfulness of Greek legislation regulating the registration of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the Registry of NGOs working with refugees and migrants in Greece, December 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3yvt6xc. Amnesty international, Greece: Regulation of NGOs working on migration and asylum threatens civic space, 31 July 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3rsGjVW; RSA, Risk of Repression: New Rules on Civil Society Supporting Refugees and Migrants in Greece, available at: https://bit.ly/31dyTLH, p. 3; RSA, Repression Continued: Greece Further Restricts Civil Society Supporting Refugees and Migrants, September 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3J0OL6N; HIAS Greece, Some thoughts on the new Joint Ministerial Decision, regulating the registration of migration-related NGOs in Greece, 8 May 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3OYVm5E. CoE Commissionner for Human Rights, Letter of Commissioner for Human Rights, 3 May 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3MSLWGb; Council of Europe, Expert Council on NGO Law of the Conference of INGOs, Opinion on the compatibility with European standards of recent and planned amendments to the Greek legislation on NGO registration, 6 July 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3WP56RL and Addendum to that opinion, 23 November 2020, available at: https://bit.ly/3NcGpeU. OHCHR, Letter to Greece by the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, 31 March 2021, available at: https://tinyurl.com/y5mnekua. European Parliament, Follow-up to the letter from the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs regarding Greece’s NGO registration law (JMD 10616/2020), 16 October 2020, available at: https://rb.gy/7kt7jr. RSA, Ombudsman calls for re-examination of rejection of RSA’s registration on the NGO Registry, 13 December 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3MSpU7o. 190