The applicant is a national of Nepal, who arrived in Cyprus legally in March 2018 holding a work permit. In October 2018, she requested international protection; on 8 July 2019 the applicant’s request was dismissed by the Asylum Service. On 23 September 2019, the applicant submitted a subsequent application that was rejected on the same day. On 24 January 2021, the applicant was arrested due to illegal stay, ordered to leave the country and detained due to risk of absconding. By that date, the applicant had not submitted any appeal according to authorities. On 6 February 2021 the applicant applied for the reopening of his subsequent application at the Asylum Service. On 8 February 2021, the detention order was annulled due to the adoption of a new decree under the Refugee Law and the deportation order was suspended due to the reopening of the applicant's file to the Asylum Service after her request made on 6 February 2021. On 8 February a detention order was re-issued based under the Refugee Act.
The applicant appealed the decision and requested the Court to rule that the detention order under the provisions of article 9F (2) (d) of the Law on Refugees, Law 6 (I) / 2000 is unlawful and must be annulled.
Based on the information before the Court, at the time of the issuance of the detention order in question under Article 9F of the Refugee Law, the applicant had submitted a request for the reopening of the subsequent application, request which was rejected as inadmissible on 12 February 21.
The court allowed the appeal and held that based on national legislation, a third-country national must be an applicant for international protection in order to be detained under Article 9F of Refugee Law. Therefore, in this case, the applicant's detention order had no legal basis, on the basis of incorrect legislation and/or under the form of a legal error, since the applicant cannot be regarded as an applicant for international protection and has lost that status in July 2019.
The court rejected a second argument supporting that the contested decision was adopted by an incompetent body.