The detention pending removal of foreign
nationals in ordinary prisons may only be justified either by an unforeseen and
exceptionally large number of foreign nationals to be returned, or by
exceptional circumstances of urgency and seriousness in an individual case. In
either exception, detainees must be kept separate from ordinary prisoners.
Pleading a lack of specialised detention facilities for returnees in a
federated state (länder in the case of Germany), and/or the consent of the
detainee, is not enough. This is according to the Opinion of Advocate General
(AG) Bot, written to help the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)
answer questions referred to it by two German courts regarding interpretation
of the detention provisions of the Returns Directive.
The questions arise from the appeals of
three foreign nationals who were all detained pending removal in ordinary
prisons due to the lack of specialised facilities in the German state (Land)
where they were detained. One of the detainees was not kept separate from
ordinary prisoners and another had consented to her detention in a prison.
