A new court ruling will allow migrants detained in Lithuania to appeal their freedom restrictions, 15min.lt reports.
In August, the Lithuanian parliament fast-tracked a law, allowing to keep irregular migrants in detention for up to six months. Over 4,200 people have been detained after crossing in from Belarus and housed in public buildings and makeshift camps since last summer.
Read more: Migration crisis in Baltics and Poland
Lithuanian officers and lower courts initially maintained that migrants could not appeal their detention.
However, a panel of three judges from the Supreme Administrative Court ruled in October that courts must consider migrants' requests to be released from detention.
According to the panel, the existing law created “a situation of legal uncertainty” as it does not provide for a clear “legal verification mechanism” for six-month movement restrictions.
The ruling established a practice that paves the way for migrants to turn to courts and demand that they be released before the six-month detention period ends.
An Iraqi citizen, 26, housed at the Foreigners' Registration Centre in Pabradė, eastern Lithuania, has already made appealed his detention, 15min reports.
Over 4,200 irregular migrants have crossed into Lithuania from Belarus so far this year.
Vilnius has accused the Minsk regime of orchestrating migrant smuggling, calling it “hybrid aggression”.
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