The Supreme Court recently ordered the release of an asylum seeker after ruling that his detention for the last five months was illegal, after he was arrested for staying illegally in Cyprus in August 2020, having been in the status of an asylum seeker since last November.
The continued detention at the Menoyia accommodation centre of the petitioner, who applied for a writ of habeas corpus, was illegal, according to the Supreme Court ruling.
The Court noted that although it was not precisely on that basis that the petitioner sought to be released, although there was partial coincidence as to the length of his detention period, as found he was unlawfully detained from July 30, 2021 to the date of the judgment. "In any event, the Court cannot ignore this fact," he noted.
The applicant had come to Cyprus as a student in March 2017 and had obtained a residence permit from the Department of Population and Immigration for one year, until 3 March 2018. After the above date, he did not apply for any extension, "nor did he leave Cyprus as he should have done", according to the decision, and as a result, he was arrested on 15 August 2020 when he was identified by the police for being in the country illegally. On the same day, detention and deportation orders were issued against him. The deportation order was not executed, as well as other subsequent such orders, due to the applicant's repeated requests for international protection status.
In the meantime, he remained in detention, on the basis of relevant orders and whose legal basis was determined according to his residence status, at the given time, in Cyprus.
According to the decision, the applicant took the last legal step for obtaining international protection status on 16 March 2021 and it concerned his request for reconsideration of his application, rejected on 2 October 2020 by the Asylum Service, to be granted such status. When this was rejected six months later by the Asylum Service, the applicant lodged an appeal on 22 April 2021 with the Administrative Court for International Protection, which was also rejected on 25 November 2021. Therefore, whether or not he had to remain in detention from 16 March 2021 until 25 November 2021 had to be decided in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Refugee Law (Law 6(I)/2000), the Court held.
However, it continued, from 30 July 2021 until the registration of his application with the Court on 9 December 2021, the applicant was detained on the basis of an order issued under the provisions of Article 14 of the Aliens and Immigration Act (Cap. 105).
"The applicant, therefore, while until 25.11.2021, at least, he was under the status of an asylum seeker" according to the Court, was detained on the basis of an order issued on 30 July under Ch. 105.
""Obviously, he was detained illegally, a situation which, apparently, continued even after the issuance, on 25.11.2021, of the aforesaid order", the Court ruled, adding that the petitioner's detention on the same basis continued up to the date of the judgment, since no review of his detention status was conducted after the latter date mentioned above. "In short, there is no basis in law for the detention of the petitioner and this is an undisputed fact," the Court held.
Exercising, of its own motion, the duty imposed on it by the Constitution under Article 35, the Court ordered that the petitioner be released and awarded costs in favour of the petitioner.
Source: CNA
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