Investigations of rights violations at EU borders remain ineffective

The report ‘Guidance on investigating alleged ill-treatment at borders’ reveals that many serious, recurrent, and widespread rights violations at borders are not properly investigated.

Victims rarely file complaints against law-enforcement bodies due to mistrust of authorities, fear of retaliation or lack of awareness of the available procedures. Investigating incidents is also difficult as evidence is scarce, especially when violations occur in remote areas or at night. Investigations often lack independence, are not thorough, take too long and rarely involve victims.

Victims of human rights violations at borders find it difficult to seek redress in national courts. An increasing number of cases are reaching the European Court of Human Rights, which has called out Member States for ineffective investigations into ill-treatment and deaths at borders.

The Screening Regulation adopted with the Pact on Migration and Asylum obliges Member States to investigate allegations of fundamental rights violations at borders. The Pact requires Member States to adopt national implementation plans. These should also contain measures for prompt and effective investigations.

To better protect migrants and refugees, FRA calls for robust monitoring at borders and stronger accountability mechanisms. It sets out the following steps to enable effective investigations of rights violations at borders:

• Record testimonies: Human rights bodies should document testimonies of rights violations, publish periodical overviews of the cases and forward relevant information to prosecutors.
• Transparency: National authorities should publish regular statistics on the number and types of disciplinary and criminal investigations, and their outcomes.
• Independent and fair investigations: Authorities should assign cases to specialised prosecutorial departments to ensure unbiased investigations.
• Guidance for prosecutors: Public prosecutor bodies should issue clear guidelines for investigating border-related abuses and for collecting evidence. They should identify and share information about patterns, shortcomings and good practices in investigations.
• Giving victims a voice:  Authorities should also draw on lawyers or victims’ protection organisations to ensure victims are represented and supported to take part in proceedings.
• Gather evidence from technology: Investigators should make use of surveillance footage, GPS data of law enforcement vehicles and personnel, and, where legally permissible, positional mobile phone data of victims and witnesses to identify victims and reconstruct sequence of events.

Quote from FRA Director Sirpa Rautio:

“There are too many allegations of human rights violations at the EU’s borders. Europe has a duty to treat everyone at the borders fairly, respectfully and in full compliance with human rights law. This calls for effective and rights-compliant border management practices, underpinned by robust and independent investigations into all rights abuse incidents.”

This FRA report examines disciplinary and criminal investigations into rights violations against migrants and refugees at the EU’s external land and sea borders between 2020 and 2023. It covers allegations of failure to rescue people in distress, physical ill-treatment and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment that puts migrants’ life and physical integrity at risk. The report does not cover administrative procedures relating to asylum or return and failure to channel asylum-seekers into the appropriate procedures.

For more, please contact: media@fra.europa.eu / Tel.: +43 1 580 30 653