THE HIGH Court has granted an interim temporary injunction preventing the Minister for Justice from transferring six asylum seekers to Greece for their application for refugee status to be heard.
Judge Michael Hanna granted the temporary injunction until next Monday in a case that will ultimately focus on whether Greece is currently implementing a fair and just asylum process.
Four of the six asylum seekers, who come from Afghanistan, Iraq and Algeria, have already been issued with transfer orders under the Dublin II Regulation – an EU law that stipulates asylum applications should be decided in the EU state where a person first arrives.
The regulation forms a key part of the EU’s common asylum system and is intended to prevent the phenomenon of “asylum shopping”, whereby asylum seekers choose the EU member state they want to apply for protection to.
Conor Power, counsel for the six asylum applicants, told the court yesterday that Greece had been strongly criticised by the UNHCR in 2008 over its treatment of asylum seekers. He asked the judge to grant an injunction preventing the Minister for Justice from transferring his clients to Greece, as part of a wider judicial review against the initial decision to transfer them to Greece.
The six cases follow a similar test case involving three asylum seekers in the Republic, who lost their appeal against a decision by the Minister for Justice to transfer them to Greece in October 2009.
The High Court is expected to consider next month whether the three asylum seekers in this test case can make an appeal to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
John Stanley, chairman of the Irish Refugee Council board, said the asylum seekers may be in danger if they were sent back to Greece.
“There are no safeguards to protect asylum applicants sent to Greece from deportation and their access to the Greek asylum procedure is not guaranteed,” said Mr Stanley, who added it was a misconception that asylum procedures were of the same standard throughout the EU.
Another NGO, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, said yesterday that asylum seekers in Greece received no information on how to make asylum applications, there was a serious lack of reception facilities there, with no interpreters and legal aid was difficult to find. “Every week thousands of asylum seekers queue outside the [asylum] station. Only 50 people are allowed to file their asylum applications; the others have to come back to try it a week later.”
The Government says asylum seekers should continue to be sent back to Greece if it was the first EU state where they arrived.
“Ireland continues to operate the Dublin II Regulation in respect of Greece on a case by case basis,” it said in a statement.