With the fate of nine Malian men in detention still unclear, their lawyer is challenging the validity of their eventual deportation.
The government cannot deport the men until documentation from Malian authorities comes through, and in the meantime it will have to contend with a Constitutional case appealing the deportation filed by lawyer Gianluca Cappitta.
The nine are what is left of a group of 33 who were rounded up on November 14 and taken to the Safi detention centre. The sudden arrest shocked the migrant community, but the Home Affairs Ministry had justified their detention, saying it formed part of an EU initiative.
A number of them had subsequently been released for various reasons, including the provision of documentation enabling them to continue to stay here.
Then on Christmas Eve, the government announced that 14 of the men were being released following a “Mali identification mission”.
These 14 had not been successfully identified as Malian nationals and, since there was no prospect for their early return, they could not be kept in detention.
The remaining 10 were identified as nationals of Mali but one of them was released by the Court.
The conditions these are being kept in are horrible
Questioned yesterday, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said “these nine people will for now remain detained, and we hope that documentation arrives as soon as possible.” In the eventuality that the documents do not arrive or take long, we would have to reconsider the situation at that point in time, he noted.
The government had hoped the documents would be in hand within days of the delegation’s visit, but three weeks on, the local authorities still did not have an indication of when the documentation will be issued, he said.
These men have now been in detention for 53 days. On the 37th day of their arrest, Integra volunteer Jean Paul Borg was granted access to the detention centre.
He wrote on Facebook: “The conditions these are being kept in are horrible. While in December, there are more flies than people. A small room is being shared by four on two-by-two bunkbeds. The mattress is thin, and the pillows have no vest. Tea was presented to most in half plastic water bottles.”
Asked about the state of detention, the minister said he would enquire with the head of detention, reiterating that renovation works have taken place over the past months.
Dr Cappitta – a lawyer at Mifsud and Mifsud Advocates – last month filed a constitutional case challenging the validity of the deportation of these nine men, who have been in Malta between two to eight years.
He told this newspaper yesterday that while the government can forcibly attempt to remove people who are in Malta irregularly, detention is only justified if removal proceedings were ongoing.
Also, according to the EU’s return directive, detention should be a last resort and applied if “less coercive measures” could not be applied. Dr Cappitta insisted these nine men were law-abiding people who worked legally and were traceable.
It was actually their compliance with the law, which requires the renewal of their migrant document every three months, that had seen them turn up at the police station where they had been arrested.
Asked what is meant with “less coercive measures”, Dr Cappitta, who described their current state as “desperate”, said one option could be to ask the men to sign a bail book every day.