Degrading treatment of migrants in detention

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M.S.S v Belgium and Greece (Appl. No. 30696/09)

  • Submission of Amnesty International to the Committee of Ministers
  • Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights

The M.S.S group of cases concerns the degrading treatment of the applicants (asylum seekers or irregular migrants) on account of their conditions of detention such as overcrowding, insufficient ventilation, lack of regular access to toilets or sanitary facilities, unsuitable food or inadequate allowances for food in various detention facilities. The ECtHR found such a treatment amount to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention (degrading ill-treatment). Some of the cases of the group concern the violations of the applicants’ right to an effective remedy in relation to deficiencies in the examination of the applicant’s asylum application and the conditions of the detention. 

At the briefing, Simon Cox, Migration Lawyer, Open Society Justice Initiative, Irem Arf Rayfield, Regional Researcher on Migration (Europe) - Amnesty International and Eleni Takou, Senior Advocacy Officer, Solidarity Center, Greece provided detailed information on the current state of execution of the cases and the suggested actions to be taken by the CM. 

The submission of the Amnesty International to the CM can be found here.