Cyprus MPs back court review of migrant detention beyond six months
Parliament voted 39–9 to let courts check whether holding third-country nationals past the six-month mark is lawful, part of Nicosia's Schengen alignment.
Parliament passed an amendment to the Aliens and Immigration Law on Friday with 39 votes in favour and nine against, the dissent coming from ELAM and the ALMA movement. The change creates a court procedure to test the legality of keeping third-country nationals detained past the six-month point, as reported by ΚΥΠΕ.
Under current rules, detention can run up to six months and, in defined cases, be extended by as much as a further 12. The new provision triggers judicial review of any prolonged detention through an application for a habeas corpus writ, filed by the Director of the Migration Department, an authorised officer or a lawyer acting for the director.
Nicosia made the move to transpose an EU directive and to follow a European Commission recommendation issued under the action plan for Cyprus joining the Schengen area.
What it means for residents
The change matters most to migrants held on the island and to the lawyers and NGOs working with them, since it opens a court route where previously only administrative decisions applied. For everyone else it is mostly a bureaucratic step on the Schengen path, but a poorly run procedure could clog the courts.
- Detainees: prolonged detention can now be challenged before a judge, though the application is lodged by the Immigration Department rather than by the person held.
- Timing: the law sets no new deadlines of its own, so how quickly cases reach court will depend on administrative and judicial capacity.
- Schengen: expect further legal tweaks in the coming months as Cyprus works through the accession checklist.
This text is written from the source article and is not a translation of it.
