The Ilias and Ahmed Grand Chamber Judgment in light of the current legal context

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (GC) delivered its judgment in the case of Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary on 21 November 2019. In its judgment the GC affirmed the Chamber’s judgment of 2017 in relation to the violation of Article 3 regarding the return of the applicants to Serbia. However, the majority of the GC did not agree with the Chamber’s unanimous decision concerning the nature of the placement in the transit zone and ruled that the applicants were not deprived of their liberty within the meaning of Article 5.

In light of the radical differences between the legal framework applicable in 2015 and in 2019, the arguments and findings of the GC judgment would not allow the Court to arrive to the same conclusion on the nature of the placement in the transit zone in cases that concern applicants held in the transit zones after 28 March 2017. Our new analysis, available here, contrasts the GC’s newly established criteria with the current legislative context of the transit zones in Hungary.