Irregular migrants who the government had threatened to send back to Libya last year should seek redress before the Maltese justice system rather than go to Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

An application 102 migrants had filed before the European Court claiming violation of their right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment and their right to an effective remedy was declared inadmissible by seven European judges including Chief justice Emeritus Vincent De Gaetano.

The migrants had been intercepted about 1.5 nautical miles off Malta in July 2013. The government had immediately threatened to send them back and had also ordered Air Malta to make the necessary arrangements to fly them to Libya.

The decision was widely criticised and NGO lawyers had applied for an injunction by the European Court to stop their immediate deportation. The application was upheld and the migrants remained here.

The European Court decided that since the migrants had not been immediately sent back, they were now able to resort to the Maltese courts to obtain redress against their alleged treatment.

The Court expressed doubts on the accessibility in practice of constitutional redress proceedings to immigrant detainees generally. However, in this case, the migrants in question had enjoyed access to a number of NGO lawyers.

It was also noted that of the 102 applicants, 62 had since been granted subsidiary protection, one was given temporary humanitarian protection, 21 were still awaiting a final decision following their appeal from a refusal of asylum status and 14 were awaiting a decision on their asylum claim.