Author
Article 50(7) Asylum Code provides that ‘detainees who are applicants for international protection shall be entitled to free legal assistance and representation to challenge the detention order…’
In practice, no free legal aid system has been set up to challenge their detention. Free legal assistance for detained asylum seekers provided by NGOs cannot sufficiently address the needs and in any event cannot exempt the Greek authorities from their obligation to provide free legal assistance and representation to asylum seekers in detention, as foreseen by the recast Reception Conditions Directive.[1] This continued to be the case in 2023, where very few NGOs, including GCR, were providing free legal assistance to detainees with limited resources. No free legal aid is provided in order for a detainee to challenge their detention decision before Courts, contrary to national and EU law. In 2023, out of the total 20,540 detention orders issued, only 5,001 (26.4%) were challenged before a Court.
In general, lawyers can easily contact their clients and visit them in pre-removal detention centers. Meetings are usually taking place in privacy but there have been cases where they happened with the presence of a police officer. Moreover, lawyers can be accompanied by interpreters while visiting a pre-removal detention center.
The CPT findings from 2018 confirm that ‘the information provided was insufficient – particularly concerning their (legal) situation […] there was an almost total lack of available interpretation services in all the establishments visited […] access to a lawyer often remained theoretical and illusory for those who did not have the financial means to pay for the services of a lawyer […] As a result, detainees’ ability to raise objections against their detention or deportation decisions or to lodge an appeal against their deportation was conditional on them being able to access a lawyer’.[2] This situation persisted since and throughout 2023.
As mentioned above, the ECtHR inter alia took into consideration the lack of legal aid to challenge detention conditions and found a violation of Article 5(4) ECHR in two 2019 cases[3] and another one in 2021.[4]
[1] Article 9(6) recast Reception Conditions Directive.
[2] CPT, Report to the Greek Government on the visit to Greece carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 10 to 19 April 2018, CPT/Inf (2019) 4, 19 February 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/3MxmQMF, paras 78-80.
[3] ECtHR, O.S.A. v. Greece, Application No 39065/16, Judgment of 21 March 2019, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/3WwhOEU; ECtHR, Kaak v. Greece, Application No 34215/16, Judgment of 3 October 2019, available in Greek at: https://bit.ly/47X5eU0.
[4] ECtHR, E.K. v. Greece, 15 January 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/46WH5vp.