Grand Chamber hearing in case of asylum-seekers held in transit zone

On 18 April 2018 at 09:15 am CET, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held an open hearing in the case of Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary. It concerned the detention of two Bangladeshi asylum-seekers in the transit zone for 23 days as well as their removal from Hungary to Serbia. The two asylum-seekers are represented by attorneys of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

The hearing follows the Court’s unanimous ruling of March 2017 stating that the de facto detention of the two asylum-seekers in the transit zone had been unlawful, there were no remedies available to them to complain about the conditions in the transit zone, and that their expulsion to Serbia exposed them, among others, to possible chain-refoulement to Greece, where they would have been at risk of inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Hungarian Government requested that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR which accepted the request in September of last year.