VALLETTA, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- A court in Malta has declared illegal the detention of six asylum seekers for over 10 ten weeks, local media reported on Monday.
The migrants, who had been rescued at sea over the past months, were officially detained for public health reasons.
The migrants, who are being assisted by lawyers from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), had filed habeas corpus proceedings -- a legal remedy used in cases of unlawful arrest -- on the grounds that they had been detained beyond the legal limit of 10 weeks.
Their lawyers had argued that their continued detention was not merely a "restriction of movement" in terms of prevention of disease laws, but was a flagrant deprivation of their personal liberty.
The applicants explained how, immediately following their rescue at sea, they had been questioned by the police, without an interpreter assisting, and taken to the detention center, where they say their personal possessions were confiscated.
They were then handed a document stating that there were "reasonable grounds" to suspect that they were carriers of a contagious disease and therefore required medical screening. The document stated that their movement was being restricted for this reason.
In the meantime, they had applied for asylum, making their presence in Malta "regular and lawful."
The detainees' lawyers told the court that the manner they were detained did not appear to stem from public health concerns but rather "a migration management policy that is concerned with other considerations -- considerations that, whilst potentially valid from a public policy perspective, do not constitute valid legal ground."
The lawyers argued that the migrants' detention amounted to an unlawful deprivation of their personal liberty, exceeding the necessary restriction of movement for public health reasons in terms of the law.
After hearing submissions on the matter, the court declared the asylum seekers' detention to be unlawful and ordered their immediate release.
