PRE-DEPORTATION DETENTION FACILITIES 5 – PRE-DEPORTATION DETENTION FACILITIES 5.1 – GENERAL ISSUES es showed that many of the pre-deportation detention facilities which the Joint Commission had visited in 2013 had since been closed or were no longer being used to enforce custody pending deportation. This applies to Goldlauter, Mannheim, Bützow, Nuremberg, Frankfurt am Main I prisons and to Rendsburg Pre-Deportation Detention Facility. The separate facilities in Berlin, Eisenhüttenstadt, Ingelheim and Bremen are still in use and also take in detainees awaiting deportation from other Länder. In addition, Mühldorf am Inn Prison in Bavaria and HanoverLangenhagen Prison in Lower Saxony have, at least provisionally, been declared specialised predeportation detention facilities. North RhineWestphalia was planning to classify Büren Prison as a pre-deportation detention facility as of the end of 2014. Baden-Württemberg had also not yet made a final decision in regard to where custody pending deportation is to be enforced. The distinction drawn between pre-deportation detention facilities and prisons is to be welcomed from the human rights perspective. However, attention must be drawn to the fact that the National Agency found a number of deficiencies in some facilities in which custody pending deportation is enforced for 57 several Länder. These should be remedied by the competent Länder at the earliest opportunity. The Joint Commission would like to point out once more in this context that attention should in particular be paid when selecting sites for pre-deportation detention facilities to the fact that it must be possible to call in interpreters at short notice. In addition, custody pending deportation must differ distinctly from penal detention. Detainees awaiting deportation should not be subjected to the restrictions and security measures which are specific to penal detention. Since the National Agency turned its focus on custody pending deportation in 2013, the conditions of this form of detention have fundamentally changed. In accordance with Article 16 (1) of Directive 2008/115/EC (Return Directive), people who are to be returned are to be detained in “specialised detention facilities”. Further, “[w]here a Member State cannot provide accommodation in a specialised detention facility and is obliged to resort to prison accommodation, the third-country nationals in detention shall be kept separated from ordinary prisoners.” Germany implemented the Return Directive in such a manner that placement in standard detention facilities was permissible if the Land in question had no specialised detention facility. By judgment of 17 July 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled that this interpretation of the Return Directive was not per53 missible. The National Agency had already recommended in its Annual Report 2013 that custody pending deportation be enforced separately from other 54 forms of detention in specialised detention facilities. In addition, in an order dated 26 June 2014 the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the Residence Act did not meet the requirements of the Dublin II Regulation and that therefore the detention of those who are to be returned to another EU Member State under this Regulation is not permitted on account of the risk 55 of flight. In December 2014 the Federal Government adopted a draft law to amend the Residence Act. The bill contains, amongst other things, more precise regulations regarding the risk of flight as required under the Dublin II Regulation and it provides that detainees awaiting deportation may not be placed in 56 normal prisons. In view of these major changes, in the period under review the National Agency enquired of the competent ministries in the Länder where custody pending deportation will in future be enforced. Their respons- 5.2 – FACILITIES VISITED 5.2.1 – Rendsburg Pre-Deportation Detention Facility, 13 January 2014 53 European Court of Justice, judgment of 17 July 2014, Joined Cases C-473/13 and C-514/13, margin no. 33 National Agency, Annual Report 2013, p. 22 55 Federal Court of Justice, order of 26 June 2014, file no. V ZB 31/14 56 Draft bill of 2 December 2014, available (in German) at http://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Nachrichte n/Kurzmeldungen/gesetzentwurfbleiberecht.pdf?__blob=publicationFile The report on the visit to this facility was included in the Annual Report 2013 as part of the spotlight on 58 custody pending deportation. 54 57 58 57 cf. National Agency, Annual Report 2013, p. 46 et seqq. National Agency, Annual Report 2013, p. 67