According to the ECHR Press Release

The applicants, Zita Bistieva, a Russian national born in 1976, and her three minor children, born in 2006, 2008, and 2013 respectively, live in Herne (Germany). The case concerned the family's detention in a centre for aliens in Poland. Ms Bistieva arrived in Poland with her husband and her first two children in 2012. The husband applied for asylum for himself and the family but the authorities rejected the application in March 2013 and ordered their expulsion. The family fled to Germany, where Ms Bistieva had a third child. The German authorities sent her and the children back to Poland in January 2014 and they were placed in the Kętrzyn aliens centre where Ms Bistieva's husband apparently joined them in February 2014. They were released from the centre in June 2014, eventually moving back to Germany. Ms Bistieva and her children complained about their detention in the centre under, in particular, Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Court is of the view that the child's best interests cannot be confined to keeping the family together and that the authorities have to take all the necessary steps to limit, as far as possible, the detention of families accompanied by children and effectively preserve the right to family life. (par. 85)

In this context, given the reasoning of the domestic authorities' decisions, the Court is not convinced that the Polish authorities had in fact, as they should have, viewed the family's administrative detention as a measure of last resort. Nor had they given due consideration to possible alternative measures, especially in the period of time when the applicants were reunited with their husband and father. The Court also has serious doubts as to whether the authorities had given sufficient consideration to the best interests of the first applicant's three children, in compliance with obligations stemming from international law and from section 401(4) of the 2013 Act (par.86)

 Lastly, the Court observes that the applicants' administrative detention lasted five months and twenty days, which is many times longer than in the reference cases against France. In that time, the authorities examined three appeals and two asylum applications lodged by the first applicant (see paragraphs 17, 19, 26, 27 and 30 above), carried out verification of the applicants' identity and had first applicant's husband transferred back from Germany. Nevertheless, the Court has to note that the examination of the asylum application lodged by the applicants on 28 January 2014 took more than two months, ending with the decision of 18 April 2014 to discontinue the proceedings. Apparently the authorities remained inactive from that date until 2 May 2014 when a new application for asylum was lodged by the applicants. In this context, the Court is of the view that the detention of minors called for greater speed and diligence on the part of the authorities. (par.87)

Accordingly, the Court finds that, even in the light of the risk that the family might abscond, the authorities failed to provide sufficient reasons to justify the detention for five months and twenty days in a secure centre, and as a result that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention (par.88)