A landmark court decision has found Greece guilty of human rights violations in regards to an illegal pushback, and noted there was strong evidence that Greece employs a system of illegally pushing back third-country nationals.

Specifically the European Court of Human Rights has found Greece in violation of protections to liberty and security, and prohibitions against inhuman or degrading treatment in regards to a pushback of a Turkish woman in 2019. The court found that this pushback, which prevented the victim exercising her right to seek asylum “had manifestly been in breach of both domestic and international law.” Furthermore, the court found that Greece’s legal system did not “provide an effective remedy” for victims to seek justice for these violations of their rights.

Pushbacks are the illegal practice of forcing migrants back across borders, violating the 1951 Refugee Convention and the EU Schengen Borders Code, which stipulate the human right for seeking international protection. This practice also risks breaching the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning refugees to places where their lives or freedoms are at risk.

The Greek government has long denied that it engages in pushbacks. However, as noted in the European Court of Human Rights decision, pushbacks have been documented by international bodies from the Council of Europe to the United Nations Special Rapporteur. The practice has been reported on by journalistic outlets from the BBC to the New York Times, and decried by dozens of human rights watchdogs. In November a report from the Greek Council for Refugees found that Greece is systematically conducting illegal pushbacks of migrants at its borders under a “regime of impunity.”

This is the first case ever examined by the European Court of Human Rights in relation to pushbacks in Evros.

The European Court of Human Rights decision stated: “Having regard to the significant number, variety and concordance of the relevant sources, the Court concluded that there were strong indications to suggest that there had existed, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of “pushbacks” of third-country nationals, by the Greek authorities, from the Evros region to Türkiye.”

The court determined Greece, “had not successfully refuted the evidence in question by providing a satisfactory and convincing alternative explanation.” 

The case hinged on the rare fact that the victim of the pushback had irrefutable evidence. The pushback in question concerns a Turkish woman who fled her home country of Turkey after being sentenced to years in prison. She had shared her live location as she entered Greece, and then as she was taken to a police station. She alleged that she was taken to the Evros River, and forced onto an inflatable boat. The next day she was arrested in Turkey. 

The court determined that “it could be inferred from those two irrefutable facts that she had been subjected to a ‘pushback’ in the interim.”

Almost every report of a pushback involves victims having their phones taken, and as such there are rarely instances where locations or photos can be shared, saved, or used in a court of law. 

In fact the European Court of Human Rights released a second decision the same day that another case filed had failed to provide prima facie evidence of the migrant’s presence in Greece and of his pushback, despite acknowledging that a system of pushbacks was evident.

The Court ruled that Greece was to pay the woman who they ruled had irrefutable evidence 20,000 euros in damages. 

Maria Papamina, the lawyer on the case and Coordinator of the Greek Council for Refugees Legal Unit, said: “This is a landmark Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. The ECtHR’s recognition of this illegal practice of the Greek authorities is a vindication for the thousands of victims who denounce the Greek authorities’ pushbacks at the Greek-Turkish border. Greek authorities must stop this illegal practice”.