4 migrants lose human rights case

Di-Ve

by di-ve.com - editorial@di-ve.com

Court

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The Constitutional Court, presided over by Mr Justice Tonio Mallia, has thrown out a plea by 4 irregular migrants who said that their detention infringed their human rights.
It noted that some of their complaints – such as potatoes in their food being too white and that they had too little sauce on their food – were too banal to even consider.

“While they have a right to insist that their stay is comfortable, when the Court hears such things, it has to question the seriousness of their complaints,” he said.

Essa Maneh from Gambia, Stephen Anyiam from Nigeria, Emanuel Onyaka Udem from Nigeria and Austin Jimmy from Nigeria filed a case against the Police Commissioner and the Home Affairs Minister asking the Court to order their immediate release.

Mr Maneh and Mr Anyiam arrived in Malta from Libya on the same boat in June 2008 while Mr Udem and Mr Jimmy arrived in September 2008. All 4 were put straight into detention at Hal Safi, where they remain to this day. They applied for refugee status when they arrived.

They said that detention was not necessary, that it was illegal and arbitrary and that it contravened the European Convention on Human Rights which protected the right to liberty.

The defendants noted that detention for a period of 12 months (18 if they do not apply for refugee status) was allowed by the Immigration Act, and that its legality that has already been unsuccessfully challenged in previous cases.

The Court also heard that the migrants were claiming that their fundamental rights had been violated but that they had not been debased or humiliated in any way while in detention.

The Court said the Convention allowed detention “pending the decision on admission, deportation or extradition”, it heard, albeit not indefinitely or for an unreasonable time.

The European Court of Justice established in 1992 that 2 years was “unreasonable” but the Constitutional Court said the national limits were not unreasonable as one had to keep a balance between the individual’s liberty and the need to protect the socio-cultural fabric of the country.

It noted that refugee applications often took so long because the migrants arrived here without any identification and often did not cooperate with the authorities, but felt the government was keeping the right balance between controlling the flood of migrants and offering a deterrent to others who might be thinking of coming here, and their right to liberty.

With regards to their claims of inhuman and debasing treatment, the Court noted that these had not been proved.

“While the situation in the detention centre is not ideal, the irregular migrants in Block B are not being subjected to distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention,” it said.

It noted that some of the problems associated with detention stemmed from the fact that the migrants formed tribal groups, with regular acts of vandalism causing damage to their own environment.