Author
Applicants for international protection are informed orally by the staff of the Ministry of Interior about the reasons of their detention during the delivery of the decision.
In practice, the interpreter is present at the delivery of the decision and reads decision to them.[1]
As reported by one attorney at law, in 2024, some applicants for international protection who were accommodated in detention centers stated difficulties due to not understanding the reasons that led to their deprivation of liberty. The same attorney at law reported that, in some cases, no interpreter was present at the time the accommodation decision was delivered. Instead, interpretation was either conducted over the phone (without the interpreter being able to see the decision being delivered, and only translating the verbal statements of the official and the applicant), or there was no interpreter present at all.[2]
Applicants may lodge a lawsuit to the Administrative Court against a detention decision within eight days after its delivery. The authority that has issued the decision, i.e., the Ministry of Interior, the police administration or the police station, shall submit the case file to the Administrative Court no later than within eight days following the day of receipt of the decision by which the Administrative Court requests the case file. The Administrative Court shall issue a decision after a personal interview within 15 days from the day of receipt of the case file. However, there are no legal consequences for not respecting the 15-day time limit prescribed by the relevant legislation. Also, the lawsuit does not suspend the decision.
The 2023 amendments to the LITP also introduced the review of the decisions on restriction of freedom of movement. According to the amendments, restriction of movement, at reasonable time intervals, shall be reviewed ex officio by the competent Administrative Court or at the request of the applicant, especially when the restriction of movement lasts longer than a month and in the event of a change or the occurrence of new circumstances that may affect the lawfulness of the restriction of movement of the applicant. If the competent Administrative Court determines that the decision on the restriction of freedom of movement is unlawful, the Ministry of Interior shall act according to the pronounced judgment and release the applicant immediately.[3] According to the opinion of one attorney at law, the provision on ex officio revision is unenforceable in practice.[4]
According to the Administrative Court in Zagreb, the court information system for managing and work on court cases does not recognise the difference between cases in which freedom of movement was restricted by other alternative measures or by detention in the Reception Centre for Foreigners.[5] Thus it is not possible to report the number of cases in which the court had to decide on detention in the Reception Centre for Foreigners.
In 2024, the Administrative Court of Zagreb decided 95 cases of restriction of movement of applicants for international protection. Most lawsuits against the restriction of the freedom of movement brought before the Administrative Court of Zagreb were rejected in 2024. Out of the 95 lawsuits, more than half (81) were rejected, 3 were accepted and referred back to the Ministry of Interior, in 9 cases reformative judgment was brought, 1 case was suspended and in 1 case the lawsuit was dissmissed.[6] The average time for processing such cases was 44 days. Other Administrative Courts did not deal with lawsuits against restrictions to the freedom of movement in the course of 2024.
In 2024, the High Administrative Court received 12 onward appeals in cases of restriction of movement of applicants for international protection and 12 were rejected while 1 was accepted.[7]
In 2024, detention of an applicant for international protection who sought asylum in Croatia due to fear of persecution related to his activism in his country of origin and who, in 2023, recorded a video highlighting the poor reception at the Reception Center for Applicants for International Protection in Zagreb and posted it on YouTube, got further attention. Namely, in autumn 2023, the Security and Intelligence Agency (SIA) designated him as a “threat to the national security and public order of the Republic of Croatia” based on the recording of this video and the criminal accusations in his country of origin (i.e., Russia). This, in turn, led to the Ministry of the Interior’s decision in June 2024 to reject his application for international protection based on the exclusion clause despite him fullfilling the conditions for asylum. In April 2024, he recorded and published a YouTube video explaining the asylum procedure in Croatia. In July 2024, he held a single-person protest in Zagreb, to attract public attention to the alleged human rights violations in other applicants’ for international protection cases by the SIA. He wore a T-shirt with a provocative inscription and held a poster with examples of cases with alleged SIA’s violations. As a result, he was apprehended and sentenced to 15 days in detention for insulting Croatian authorities, after which he was placed at the Transit Reception Center for Foreigners in Trilj for three months.[8] This decision was challenged before the Administrative Court in Zagreb and, in September 2024, the Administrative Court in Zagreb rejected the respondent’s case to annul the decision. In October 2024 his attorney-at-law filed an appeal against the judgement of the Administrative Court in Zagreb. On 18 October 2024 he was dismissed form the Transit Reception Centre for Foreigner in Trilj, due to the expiration of the three months.[9] Ultimately, in March 2025, the High Administrative Court ruled that his detention at the Transit Reception Centre in Trilj was unlawful. The High Administrative Court found that there had been no individual assessment of all the circumstances of the specific case, including whether the legitimate objective (i.e., the protection of public order) could have been achieved by less restrictive means.[10]
[1] Information provided by attorneys-at-law, 3 December 2019.
[2] Information provided by attorneys-at-law, 31 January 2025.
[3] Article 54(13)-(14) LITP.
[4] Information provided by attorneys-at-law, 31 January 2025.
[5] Information provided by the Administrative Court in Zagreb, 18 February 2021.
[6] Information provided by the Administrative Court in Zagreb, 17 January 2025.
[7] Information provided by the High Administrative Court, 22 January 2025.
[8] Un Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders: Croatia: rejection of asylum application, detention and potential deportation to Russia of HRD Vladislav Arinichev (joint communication), 18 November 2024; available at: https://srdefenders.org/croatia-rejection-of-asylum-application-detention-and-potential-deportation-to-russia-of-hrd-vladislav-arinichev-joint-communication/.
[9] The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations Office in Geneva: Observations of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, available at: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=38744.
[10] Centar for Peace Studies: The Detention of Vladislav Arinichev Was Unlawful – Ruled the High Administrative Court in Zagreb!, available at: https://www.cms.hr/detencija-vladislava-arinicheva-bila-je-nezakonita-presudio-je-visoki-upravni-sud-u-zagrebu