The EU's
top court has ruled foreigners cannot be jailed simply for crossing into a
country illegally. The ruling comes amid heated disputes within the EU over the
mass influx of asylum seekers.
The
European Court of Justice's (ECJ) ruling on Tuesday refers to a case which
predates the refugee debate dominating politics across the 28-nation bloc.
In 2013,
before the current influx of migrants, a Ghanaian woman, Selina Affum, was
apprehended in France as she was about to enter the Channel Tunnel while taking
a bus from Belgium to the United Kingdom, which is not a member of the
passport-free Schengen zone.
She
presented only a Belgian passport with another name and photograph, upon which
French authorities took her into custody for illegally entering the country.
Affum
challenged the arrest and a French court asked the ECJ to rule whether she
could be imprisoned based on EU return directives. The directives are designed
to establish common standards and procedures for member states when removing
non-EU nationals who are staying in their territory illegally.
"The
Return Directive prevents a national of a non-EU country who has not yet been
subject to the return procedure being imprisoned solely because he or she has
entered the territory of a Member State illegally across an internal border of
the Schengen area," the court said in a statement.
Detention
undermines rules' effectiveness
The ECJ
ruled that France could not imprison someone for entering its territory without
permission because it undermined the effectiveness of EU rules and ultimately
slowed down the return of illegal migrants to their country of origin or a
country of transit.
The
decision refers also to those who illegally cross the internal borders of the
Schengen zone or those arrested trying to leave the zone, such as from France
to the United Kingdom.
Bloc
members can only imprison people who illegally entered their territory if they
are suspected of or have committed a crime; they have stayed on after the
process of deportation; they have returned after being deported; or if
processing their legality could be "compromised."
Importantly,
the court found that EU directives do not prevent non-EU nationals from being
placed in "administrative detention" while authorities determine
whether or not their stay is illegal. Some EU member states are either holding
or considering holding migrants in temporary detention pending the processing
of applications to stay.
Tuesday's
ruling could have implications for how EU member states handle an influx of
refugees and economic migrants both within the bloc and on its external
borders. Many member states are clamping down on economic migrants with no
chance of asylum in order to make room for those fleeing war and persecution.
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