The ruling states that the placing of ‘asylum seekers or third-country nationals who are the subject of a return decision in the Röszke transit zone at the Serbian-Hungarian border must be classified as ‘detention’.
The court added that if those detained were held with no valid reason, following a judicial review, the court hearing the case must release them immediately.
It relates to the case of four migrants from Afghanistan and Iran, who had their applications rejected by Hungarian authorities.
The judgment comes at a critical time for the ECJ. Last week, the EU’s top legal authority faced a challenge to one of its rulings by a German constitutional court. The ruling from Germany threw up a legal conundrum, with experts questioning whether the supremacy of ECJ rulings was at risk.
