On 21 March 2019 the Court handed down a Chamber judgment in the case of O.S.A. v. Greece (application no. 12267/16), concerning the conditions of detention of the applicants, Afghan nationals, in the Vial centre on the island of Chios, and the issues of the lawfulness of their detention, the courts’ review of their case, and the information provided to them.

The Court held that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 4 (right to a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention) of the European Convention on Human Rights, finding that, in view of the circumstances, the applicants had not had access to remedies by which to challenge the decisions ordering their expulsion and the extension of their detention. It noted in particular that the applicants were Afghan nationals who understood only Farsi and they had had no lawyers to assist them. The documents issued to them by the authorities had been written in Greek and had not specified which administrative court had jurisdiction. The Court further found that the applicants’ detention had nevertheless been lawful and that the threshold of seriousness for it to be characterised as inhuman or degrading treatment had not been attained.

It therefore held that there had been no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the Convention.