A Syrian applicant was granted subsidiary protection in Cyprus on 11 September 2020. On 31 March 2023, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for offences related to conspiracy to commit a felony, illegal possession of class A controlled drug and illegal possession of property and antiquities. His prison sentence began on 18 February 2022. On 23 September 2024 a recommendation letter was submitted by the Aliens Service to the Asylum Service for the revocation of the applicant's subsidiary protection status. On 21 October 2024, a detention and deportation order was issued against the applicant legally based on Article 14, Chapter 105 of the Aliens and Immigration Laws and on Article 29 of the Refugee Law. One day before his release from the Central Prison, on 1 November 2024, he was notified of the intention of the Director of the Immigration Department to deport him ‘to a safe third country'. The applicant submitted an appeal to the International Protection Administrative Court (IPAC) to challenge the legality of the detention and deportation orders issued against him. In his appeal, he sought judicial remedy consisting of a judicial declaration by the court that the decisions ordering the expulsion on grounds that the is a prohibited immigrant and the decision ordering the detention were illegal, null, and devoid of effect. He also sought the court to declare that the deportation decision violated his right to be protected from direct or indirect refoulement. 

The Deputy Ministry submitted four objections. 

First, it argued that the examination of the detention order does not fall within the jurisdiction of the IPAC, as its competence is limited to the Refugee Laws. The applicant's representative argued that the objection was contradictory and unfounded, since the authority had founded the detention decree on two different legal bases, and that the Refugee Law constituted lex specialis prevailing over the Aliens law. Thus, the IPAC was competent to examine the appeal. She pointed out that the detention order is ancillary to the deportation order, which means that the annulment of the deportation order automatically entails the annulment of the detention order. 

On this point, the IPAC held that the practice of the authority to base the detention and deportation decrees on two legal bases is legally incorrect and ordered the administration, in the future, to issue decrees with a clear and precise legal basis. The IPAC clarified that the detention order was issued pursuant to Article 14 of Chapter 105 of the Aliens Law, and that the reference to Article 29 of the Refugee Law concerns exclusively the legal basis justifying the deportation of the applicant. It held that the mere reference to Article 29 of the Refugee Law is not sufficient to establish the jurisdiction of the IPAC, and that the competent court to judicially review whether it is legally correct to apply Article 14 of Chapter 105 of the Aliens Law and detain a person who has subsidiary protection status corresponds to the Administrative Court [Διοικητικού Δικαστηρίου]. It therefore dismissed the applicant's claim in this respect. 

Then, the court examined the second, third and fourth objections together. These concerned the lack of jurisdiction of the court to award the requested judicial remedy (‘judicial declaration'), the lack of locus standi of the applicant, and that the requested judicial remedy was premature as no decision had been taken on the country of expulsion of the applicant due to his own actions or omissions.  

The IPAC accepted the second objection brought by the authority noting that, considering its legal framework, it lacks jurisdiction to issue such a declaration on the deportation of the applicant. The court highlighted that the jurisdiction of the court is to review the legality and correctness of specific acts, rather than to issue abstract declaratory judgments. It then proceeded to examine whether the principle of non-refoulement was infringed and whether this constituted a ground for annulment. 

The applicant's representative argued that the deportation order had to be annulled because it was issued before the revocation or exclusion from international protection took place, because conditions for such a decision were not met in the case of the applicant, because the right to be heard of the applicant was violated, and because the order issued referred to deportation to an ‘unknown country'. 

The IPAC concluded that by handing the applicant the deportation orders just one day before his release and asking him to submit any observations within a period of 48h, and subsequently handing him a note declaring him a prohibited immigrant on the same day, the authority deprived the applicant of any substantial possibility of intervening in the proceedings against him, thereby violating the principles of good administration and due process. Furthermore, the IPAC noted that the letter was served in English, a language the applicant did not understand, and that the deportation order did not explicitly specify the country of destination for his deportation. 

The IPAC noted that the deportation country is one of the most essential elements of the deportation decision, which the applicant should be informed of to effectively exercise his right to a prior hearing. The lack of this information, in itself, raises a serious violation of the principle of non-refoulement. Citing settled case law from the ECtHR, inter alia M.A. and Others v Bulgaria, the court highlighted that respecting the principle of non-refoulement imposes an obligation to carry out a substantive examination of the risk a person faces in the event of return. The court highlighted that when an expulsion decision does not identify the country of destination, it becomes impossible to effectively assess whether the person's return would violate the principle of non-refoulement. 

The IPAC upheld the applicant's claim that his right to be heard had been violated, annulling the deportation order and dismissing the remaining pleas.