The Ministry of Justice is prioritising the search for an alternative facility to detain juveniles, so that the Menogeia detention centre can help ease overcrowding at the Central Prisons. Officials are working to identify the best possible option under the circumstances, aiming to secure a suitable location that complies with the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), meets standards for the detention of minors, and ensures all security requirements.
Since late March, the detention facilities at Menogeia have been available, following the opening of the new pre‑departure centre at Limnes. Despite this, juveniles currently held at the Central Prisons were not transferred to Menogeia, as initially planned. This development reflects current thinking within the Ministry of Justice.
Specifically, the ministry appears inclined to find a different site for the detention of minors, while transferring low‑risk offenders serving prison sentences at the Central Prisons to Menogeia instead. The core rationale is to make the most effective use of all available detention facilities until the longer‑term goal is achieved – the construction of a new, modern correctional institution.
Given that the number of detained juveniles is fewer than 30, officials concluded that it would be inappropriate to house them in a facility capable of holding a much larger convicted population. However, if no other site can be identified and converted into a juvenile detention facility, minors will inevitably have to be transferred to Menogeia within the current year.
In any case, by December, minors should no longer be held at the Central Prisons alongside convicted prisoners and remand detainees.
Elena Perikleous: Compliance with timelines
Asked to comment on whether a change in the location planned for juvenile detention is under consideration, Commissioner for the Protection of Children’s Rights Elena Perikleous told Politis: “Any potential change in planning regarding where a juvenile detention facility will be created cannot absolve the state of its core obligation – the immediate establishment of such a facility, as required by the relevant legislation.”
Perikleous stressed that “our primary concern is that the timelines finally be respected, as there has already been a very significant delay, and parliament has approved a further extension until 31 December 2026. At the same time, the site selected and the way it operates must be fully aligned with the law. It must be a dedicated facility outside prisons, with a genuinely child‑centred, supportive, educational and rehabilitative character, so that children’s rights are effectively safeguarded in practice and detention is applied only as a measure of last resort.”