Law allowing detention of migrants entering the country without documents violates Lithuania’s Constitution, Supreme Court says
It was decided by a decision of the Supreme Court unconstitutional law of 2021 in Lithuania, on the basis of which the authorities are allowed to they imprison for months the immigrants to detention centersif their number increases.
This is a law that was passed by the parliament in the summer of 2021 and opened the “way” for the detaining undocumented immigrants for up to six months while also limiting their rights to appeal.
This punitive measure was intended to prevent migrants from coming en masse to the borders of the EU-member country from Belarus. However, it caused great reactions and outcry by humanitarian organizations.
Prime Minister Ingrid Simonaite said at the time that the policy would prevent migrants from continuing on their way to the EU — a destination preferred by the vast majority of migrants arriving on EU soil in recent years.
In its decision, the Constitutional Court stated, among other things, that the parliamentarians had the right to legislate the detention of immigrants when their numbers “surge”. But, according to the same announcement, he was found violation of the Constitutionprohibiting individualized assessment of an immigrant’s status and taking away their right appeal to a court.
Deputies limited “the right to liberty more than was necessary in order to achieve their goals“, said the president of the court announcing the verdict.
The decision was the result appeal brought by an Iraqi immigrant against his six-month detention in 2021-2022 which had been rejected by lower courts.
More than 4.000 immigrants entered this Baltic republic of 2.7 million from Belarus in 2021, mostly Iraqi citizens. The government started sending all the immigrants back to the border since August of that year and parliament turned the practice into law in April 2023, rejecting the concerns of human rights groups.
