Published on 3 November 2025
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 23659/24
N.Y.
against Serbia
lodged on 21 August 2024
communicated on 17 October 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The present application concerns the refusal of entry into Serbia to the applicant, a national of Türkiye, and his subsequent stay in the international transit zone of the Nikola Tesla airport in Belgrade.
The applicant arrived in Belgrade from Moscow on 20 August 2024 at 3.33 p.m. At 5.45 p.m. the border control authorities denied him entry to Serbia on the ground that he had attempted to use a falsified passport to which he later admitted. His immediate return to Türkiye was ordered.
The applicant was placed in the premises of the transit zone, reserved for persons not authorised to enter Serbian territory, pending his deportation to Türkiye.
On 21 August 2024, the Court indicated to the Government of Serbia, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, that the applicant should not be expelled to Türkiye until 28 August 2024. The applicant was released on 21 August 2024 at 6.25 p.m., when he was registered as an asylum seeker and issued with an asylum-intention certificate (potvrda o registraciji stranca koji je izrazio nameru da podnese zahtev za azil). On 28 August 2024, the Court decided not to extend the interim measure previously indicated.
On 20 September 2024, the applicant lodged a constitutional appeal with the Constitutional Court of Serbia. Those proceedings are pending. The Constitutional Court has already found, in its decision Už-9940/2016 of 21 May 2019, that another claimant’s stay in the airport international transit zone did not amount to deprivation of liberty under the national law.
The applicant currently resides in France, where he has applied for asylum.
Invoking Article 5 § 1 of the Convention, the applicant complains that his stay at the transit zone constituted an arbitrary deprivation of liberty, as no formal decision ordering his detention was issued. Furthermore, the applicable legal framework did not provide a legal basis for detention following refusal of entry, nor did it include safeguards against arbitrariness. Relying on Article 5 §§ 4 and 5 of the Convention, the applicant further alleges that he was deprived of his right to take proceedings to challenge the lawfulness of his detention and of his right to obtain compensation for unlawful detention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was the constitutional appeal an effective remedy within the meaning of this provision in respect of the applicant’s complaints under Article 5 of the Convention, in light of the Constitutional Court’s decision Už-9940/2016 of 21 May 2019 (see Sejdovic v. Italy [GC], no. 56581/00, § 46, ECHR 2006-II)?
2. Did the applicant’s stay at the airport international transit zone amount to a deprivation of liberty (see Ilias and Ahmed v. Hungary [GC], no. 47287/15, § 217, 21 November 2019, and M.A. v. Cyprus, no. 41872/10, § 190, ECHR 2013)?
3. Was the applicant deprived of his liberty in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention and was his detention “in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law” (see Z.A. and Others v. Russia [GC], nos. 61411/15 and 3 others, §§ 159-161, 21 November 2019)?
4. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective procedure by which he could challenge the lawfulness of his detention, as required by Article 5 § 4 of the Convention (see Moustahi v. France, no. 9347/14, § 103, 25 June 2020, and R.R. and Others v. Hungary, no. 36037/17, §§ 97-98, 2 March 2021)?
5. Did the applicant have an effective and enforceable right to compensation for his detention in contravention of Article 5, as required by Article 5 § 5 of the Convention (see Nolan and K. v. Russia, no. 2512/04, § 104, 12 February 2009)?