K v Landkreis Gifhorn, Request for a preliminary ruling from the Amtsgericht Hannover, Case C-519/20

CJEU: Judgment on the interpretation of Art 16 and 18 Returns Directive

On 10 March 2022, the Court of Justice delivered its judgment in C-519/20. This case concerned a Pakistani national who was detained for three months in the Langenhagen division of Hannover prison. The applicant's asylum claim was rejected and he was presented with an expulsion warning in 2017. In 2020, the applicant was arrested while boarding a coach and was subsequently detained with an expulsion order. The division in which the applicant was detained was separate from the rest of the prison but shared some staff and common areas. The questions referred thereby focused on the interpretation of Articles 16 and 18 of the Return Directive, specifically the notions of  "specialised detention facility" and "emergency situation".
 
The Court firstly examined the interpretation of a "specialised detention facility" and referred to the Advocate General's Opinion that the mere fact of an administrative connection to an authority with powers over prisons does not in itself preclude the facility as falling under a "specialised detention centre" definition. It furthermore outlined that attention must be paid to the layout of the premises and the qualification and powers of the staff and determined that the fact that the majority of staff responsible for supervision of the detention had specific training and were exclusively assigned to the division in which the detention took place. It therefore concluded that this specific section of the prison could be regarded as a "specialised detention centre" under Article 16, provided that the conditions of the detention do not amount to confinement in a prison environment and is designed in such a way that the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter and enshrined in Article 16 (2) to (5) and 17 of the Returns Directive are respected.
 
The Court then noted that the "emergency situations" provided for in Article 18 of the Directive do not authorise Member States to derogate from taking all appropriate measures to ensure compliance with their obligations under the directive or with strict safeguards against arbitrariness. It concluded in this regard that Article 18 read in conjunction with Article 47 of the Charter must be interpreted as meaning that the national court when ordering detention or the extension of detention in a prison must be able to verify whether the conditions under Article 18 are met.
 
Finally, the Court turned to the interpretation of Article 16 (1) in the application of legislation which allows detention in prisons, separated from prisoners and on a temporary basis, where the conditions of an "emergency situation" under Article 18 (1) are not met. It noted that Article 16 must be interpreted both restrictively and in compliance with the scope of Article 18 and that detention outside of a specialised detention centre ceases to be justified if the saturation of specialised detention facilities continues beyond a few days or is repeated systematically. The Court referred to El Dridi where it was determined that Article 16 and 18 are unconditional provisions and sufficiently precise to have direct effect. The Court thereby concluded that Article 16 (1) read in conjunction with the primacy of EU law, must be interpreted as meaning that a national court must disapply legislation which allows third-country nationals to be detained in prisons where the conditions under Article 18 (1) and the second sentence of Article 16 (1) are not or no longer met.