The applicant, national of Pakistan, was rejected an application for asylum on 21 June 2018. The appeal was rejected by decision of 13 April 2020, communicated to the applicant on 6 May 2020. The applicant remained on the territory and on 12 February 2021 he was found as having remained illegally in Cyprus since 21 July 2020, when the deadline for appeal against the negative decision expired. On the same day, a detention and deportation order was issued, with no alternative to detention since the applicant had no declared address. On 18 March 2021, the applicant requested the reopening of his asylum file to the Asylum Service and the Director of the Department issued a detention order pursuant to Article 9F of the Refugee Law (Law 6(I)/2000), on the grounds that, the applicant did not have a declared residence address in accordance with the Aliens and Immigration Service, and no alternative measures to detention could be adopted. On 19 April 2021 a new detention and expulsion decision was adopted based on Article 14 of the Aliens and Immigration Act and the applicant appealed against it. By letter of 22 April 2021, the applicant was informed by the Asylum Service that his request to re-open the asylum file was rejected as inadmissible. The detention decision of 19 April 2021 was served to the applicant on 23 April 2021. In the present appeal the applicant also submitted that he appealed against the rejection of his subsequent application on 22 April 2021. The applicant argued in the appeal that the detention and expulsion decision of 19 April 2021 is unlawful because was based on incorrect reasons and disregarded the fact that the applicant was still an asylum applicant because he requested the re-opening of the file, the appeal against the rejection of the inadmissibility was pending and he remained legally on the territory of Cyprus since 18 March 2021.

The Administrative Court made a thorough analysis of the EU legislation and consulted the CJEU case law, and analysed specifically the case of Mehmet Arslan v Police Force of the Czech Republic, Regional Police Directorate of the Usti nad Labem Region, Foreigners Police Station (Policie ČR, Krajské ředitelství policie Ústeckého kraje, odbor cizinecké policie), C-534/11, ECLI:EU:C:2013:343, 30 May 2013 and Sadikou Gnandi (Togo) v État belge, C-181/16, ECLI:EU:C:2018:465 , 19 June 2018. 

The Court noted that the initial detention order of 12 February 2021 was annulled and the order of 18 March 2021, which was based on the Refugee Law, was also annulled in order to be replaced by the detention and expulsion orders based on the Aliens and Immigration Law, while the applicant had a right of residence under the Refugees Law until the Asylum Service had decided on the admissibility of his application. In addition, as an applicant for international protection and before his application was rejected, a detention order could only be issued against him on the basis of Article 9F of the Refugee Law (Law 6(I)/2000) and subject to the conditions and safeguards set out in that Article. The Court decided that the contested decrees were based on incorrect statement of reasons because the decrees were issued while the Asylum Service was examining the subsequent asylum application under admissibility or inadmissibility grounds, period during which the applicant resided legally, according to the Refugee Law.

The Court concluded that a person who submits a subsequent application, acquires the status of an asylum seeker from the moment of registration of the subsequent application until the final decision of the Asylum Service (decision on the admissibility or inadmissibility) and annulled the contested detention and expulsion decrees.