The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Cyprus violated the right to liberty of a Moroccan asylum seeker who was detained in Menogeia for approximately 13.5 months on national security grounds.
In its judgment in K.A. v. Cyprus, the Court found that the prolonged detention was not sufficiently connected to the purpose for which it had been imposed and exceeded the period that could reasonably be considered necessary. The Court awarded the applicant a total of €8,750 in damages and costs.
The applicant entered the Republic in 2019 from the occupied areas without authorisation and was subsequently arrested and detained by the authorities for reasons of national security.
His detention at the Menogeia Detention Centre lasted from 10 January 2019 until 24 February 2020.
The case before the ECHR consisted of two separate complaints.
The first concerned an alleged violation of Article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to liberty and security.
The applicant argued that his detention was unlawful because no deportation order had been issued against him and no criminal proceedings had been initiated. He further claimed that the detention had become arbitrary because of its length.
The second complaint concerned an alleged violation of Article 5(4) of the Convention, which guarantees the right of a detained person to challenge the lawfulness of their detention before a court.
The applicant argued that the procedure reviewing his detention failed to satisfy the requirements of procedural fairness and equality of arms.
More specifically, he claimed that key evidence had not been disclosed to him and that no adequate safeguards had been provided to compensate for restrictions on his access to documents.
Violation of the right to liberty
With regard to the first complaint, the ECHR found a violation of Article 5(1).
According to the Law Office of the Republic, the Court held that there was not a sufficiently close connection between the detention and the objective of preventing unauthorised entry into the Republic.
The Court also found that the national authorities had been inconsistent regarding the legal basis for the detention, at times presenting national security as an independent ground for detention and at other times linking it to the applicant's asylum application, which remains pending.
In addition, after the applicant filed an appeal before the Administrative Court of International Protection, there was, according to the ECHR, no meaningful progress in the examination of his asylum case.
The total period of detention, approximately 13.5 months, was considered excessive and not reasonably necessary for the purposes of Article 5(1)(f), the provision relating to immigration detention.
The Court ultimately stressed that a swift completion of the asylum procedure would have served both the interests of the applicant and those of the state, which had argued that he posed a threat to national security.
No violation regarding judicial review
As regards the second complaint, the ECHR found no violation of Article 5(4).
Although the applicant argued that he lacked access to crucial confidential material, the Court found that he had been informed of the legal basis and principal reasons for his detention.
It also found that he had access to a substantial part of his administrative file and understood the essence of the suspicions against him.
The applicant was represented by a lawyer and, according to the Court, generally had the opportunity to challenge effectively the assertion that he posed a threat to national security.
The Court also attached significance to the fact that the Administrative Court had access to all confidential material and was able to assess whether its non-disclosure was justified.
As a result, the ECHR concluded that, despite restrictions on access to information for national security reasons, the review process contained sufficient compensatory safeguards.
The Court awarded the applicant €5,000 for non-pecuniary damage and a further €3,750 for legal costs and expenses.
