A 17-year-old Ivorian migrant who spent 225 days in detention in Malta, including a spell of confinement inside a one-windowed container, has been awarded €25,000 in damages by the European Court of Human Rights.

The minor, born in September 2004, arrived in Malta with an all-male group of boat persons in November 2021 after spending ten days at sea. Twelve fellow migrants, including children, died during the trip.

The group was rescued and taken to Hal Far Initial Reception Centre (HIRC), where he was detained in quarantine until given clearance by Maltese medical authorities.

The French-speaking teen claimed in the human rights case filed against Malta that he was given no explanation, in a language he could understand, as to why he was being detained.

The government subsequently claimed that his detention was in line with standard procedure in terms of a two-week quarantine order.

However, the document presented in court in the French and English versions, was neither dated nor named, neither referenced in any way or filled in.

For his first two weeks in Malta the minor was kept at the HIRC and tested negative to COVID-19 three times.

Poor accommodation conditions

He described how he was confined to a block with twenty-three other people, including adult men, with access to only three toilets and two showers and a bucket to wash the floor as well as their clothes.

The room he shared with three other migrants lacked natural light, was very humid and cold, with poor ventilation and with no access to drinking water other than a tap.

The applicant was subsequently targeted by a restriction of movement on public health reasons order.

After being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was treated at Mater Dei Hospital and later moved to Zone 4 of Safi Detention Centre where he was kept until January 2022 together with other adults in his group.

A psycho-social assessment carried out around that time concluded that he was an adult, aged 19.

The teen claimed that at the end of that month, he was transferred to a one-windowed container with a Nigerian man, having no access to the outside, but kept indoors all day, with limited light and ventilation. After mid-April he would be allowed outside in a fenced area for half an hour.

Those claims were contested by the government, which countered that early in February 2022, the applicant was moved to a two-bedded unit with another alleged minor, separately from adult asylum seekers.

Through all this, the minor had applied for asylum.

Lawyers from Aditus Foundation got to know about the minor and requested a visit, subsequently filing two Habeas Corpus attempts to have his arrest declared unlawful and thus to obtain his release from custody.

Both attempts failed.

The minor’s claims for international protection were also rejected and the matter is still pending before the Appeals Tribunal.

But meanwhile, his lawyers filed the breach of rights case before the European Court claiming that detention conditions in various immigration centres amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment.

The two-month-long restriction of movement order also amounted to unlawful and arbitrary detention and the constitutional proceedings before the Maltese courts did not amount to an effective remedy.

Detention of migrants 'for health reasons' was illegal

When delivering judgment on Tuesday, the ECHR, Second Section composed of seven judges including Madam Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland, upheld the applicant’s claims and declared that the practice of detaining migrants “for health reasons” under order by the Superintendent for Public Health was illegal.

Confinement of minors raised “particular issues” since, whether accompanied or not, they were considered “extremely vulnerable” and presented specific needs with respect to age, lack of independence and asylum-seeker status.

Reception conditions had to be such as to ensure that they did not cause “a situation of stress and anxiety, with particularly traumatic consequences.”

For more than six months out of the seven complained of, the applicant was held at Safi Detention Centre, the court observed. 

For the various phases of detention and bearing in mind his age and health situation, the Court observed that the evidence was “more than sufficient” for it to conclude that in light of the applicant’s “vulnerabilities” accommodation conditions were not adapted to his needs nor to the reasons for such detention.

Whilst upholding his claims, the Court observed that the “problems detected in the applicant’s particular case may subsequently give rise to numerous other well-founded applications which are a threat to the future effectiveness of the system put in place by the Convention.”

The Court said its concern was “to facilitate the rapid and effective suppression of a defective national system hindering human rights protection” and for that purpose the court said that “general measures at national level are undoubtedly called for in execution of the present judgment.”

The court awarded the applicant €25,000 in non-pecuniary damages together with an additional €3000 to cover costs and taxes.

Lawyers from Aditus Foundation and JRS Malta assisted the applicant.