The European Court of Human Rights reported another case against Poland – M.S.T. and others v. Poland, Application no. 40464/22 – concerning a married couple with a three-year-old child who spent almost six months in the Guarded Centre for Migrants in Kętrzyn.
We have written about the complaint filed previously.
The applicants allege that their detention in Poland is incompatible with domestic law and the European Convention on Human Rights. Most importantly, given the severity of the mother’s and child’s mental health conditions, they should never have been placed in a guarded centre. Furthermore, such a long detention led to a deterioration of their health, in particular that of the child, who began to develop anxiety reactions and stomach problems. The difficulty of the stay in the guarded centre was compounded by the lack of adequate psychological care for the family, including the refusal to consult an independent external psychologist and the lack of a child psychologist in the centre.
The family also complained about the poor conditions of their stay in the guarded centre, including room size of less than 4 m2 per person, lack of protection from the summer heat, restriction of outdoor activities, personal inspection upon admission to the centre violating the dignity of the Complainants or failure to provide any privacy to conduct their private and family life.
The allegations also concerned procedural breaches, in particular the failure to serve the applicants with the Commander-in-Chief of the Border Guard’s requests for placement and prolongation of their stay in a guarded centre, the failure to translate documents into a language they understood, the failure to consider requests for evidence relevant to the case and, moreover, the failure to thoroughly examine the possibility of alternative measures to detention and the failure to take into account the best interests of the minor child when making judgments.
The European Court of Human Rights reported the case of M.S.T. and others v. Poland to the Polish government and addressed questions about whether the family’s detention was justified by a relevant purpose under the European Convention on Human Rights, whether the complainants had the opportunity to effectively challenge court orders for their detention, and whether there had been a violation of the prohibition of torture, other inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to private and family life.
The family is represented before the European Court of Human Rights by attorney Małgorzata Jaźwinska, who cooperates with our Association.