The EU’s top court on Thursday ruled against Hungary over its “transit zone” camps for migrants, dealing a fresh blow to the right-wing Budapest government and its anti-immigration policies.
The European Court of Justice ruled that migrants could not be detained in the camps without their cases being examined individually, and that they could not be held for more than four weeks.
The ruling, in a case brought by Iranian and Afghan families detained for more than a year after their asylum applications were refused, is the latest confrontation between EU authorities and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government.
The Luxembourg-based court ruled that holding people at the Roszke transit zone — a container camp built into a fence along the Serbian border — amounted in legal terms to detention.
In its judgement, the court said that migrants could not be detained without “a reasoned decision ordering that detention and without the need for and proportionality of such a measure having been examined.”
It also said that the detention of asylum seekers “may not under any circumstances exceed four weeks,” counting from the date they lodged their application for asylum.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), a human rights organization that represented the families, welcomed the ruling, saying it meant that the transit zones amounted to “unlawful detention.”
“All those kept in the transits beyond four weeks must be released. If they are still in the asylum procedure, they should either be placed in an open reception facility or, after an individualized assessment, in formal asylum detention,” Andras Lederer of the HHC said.
Hungary’s two “transit zone” camps, where people are held in shipping containers behind barbed wire, have also been criticized by rights groups as inhumane.
Last year the European Commission said that conditions in the camps breached EU human rights legislation.
Under amendments passed in 2018, Hungary has been automatically rejecting asylum applications from those who have passed through a “safe transit country,” in this case Serbia.
Budapest’s position remains “unchanged,” government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said.
“Our regulations and legal practices are in line with EU and international law since the migrants could have left the transit zone in the direction of Serbia at any time,” Kovacs wrote in a blog post.
“These people are no longer asylum seekers, as their claims were rejected long ago; therefore, they cannot enter Hungary legally,” he said.
European Commission for Values and Transparency Vice President Vera Jourova on Thursday said that she hoped Hungary would return to the circle of “undoubtedly democratic countries.”
Her comments came after the US-based Freedom House rights watchdog said that Hungary could no longer be called a democracy, as Orban had “dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions.”
‘OBVIOUS DIFFERENCE’: The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been researching bat coronaviruses to trace the SARS pathogen, which is 80 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2 The Chinese virology institute in the city where COVID-19 first emerged has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, but none match the new contagion wreaking havoc around the world, its director has said. Scientists think COVID-19 — which first emerged in Wuhan and has killed more than 340,000 people worldwide — originated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal. However, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster China Global Television Network that claims made by US President Donald Trump and others that the novel coronavirus could have escaped from the facility were
SPACE RACE: The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp mission aims to land a robotic rover and put a probe into orbit around the planet China is targeting a July launch for its ambitious Mars mission, which includes landing a remote-controlled robot on the surface of the Red Planet, the company in charge of the project has said. Beijing has invested billions of dollars in its space program in an effort to catch up with its rival, the US, and affirm its status as a major world power. The Mars mission is among a number of new space projects China is pursuing, including putting Chinese astronauts on the moon and having a space station by 2022. Beijing had been planning the Mars mission for some time this year,
India has moved additional troops along its northern border as it prepares for an extended conflict with China, after several rounds of talks failed to ease tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals. China has already placed about 5,000 soldiers and armored vehicles within its side of the disputed border in the Ladakh region, an Indian government official said, asking not to be identified, citing rules. India is adding a similar number of troops as well as artillery guns along the border to fend off the continuing incursions by the Chinese army, the official said. The standoff began on May 5, when troops clashed
China is poised to enshrine individuals’ rights to privacy and personal data for the first time, a symbolic first step as more of the country of 1.4 billion people becomes digitized — and more vulnerable to leaks and hacks. The legislation is part of China’s first civil code, a sweeping package of laws that is being deliberated during the annual meeting of China’s National People’s Congress, which began on Friday after a delay of more than two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent draft, an individual has a right to privacy and to have their personal information protected. Data
RSS