CONTENTION (Control of Detention)

The project CONTENTION (Control of Detention), co-funded by the European Union in the framework of the European Return Fund”, was implemented by the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in partnership with the Odysseus Network (ULB) between 2013 and 2014.

The main objective of the project was to inform, analyse and compare the EU Return Directive based judicial control of pre-removal detention of third-country nationals in 11 EU Member States (AT, BG, BE, CZ, DE, FR, IT, NL, SK, SI and UK) with a view to improving it, in particular regarding the control of the length of detention.

The project sought to identify and exchange best practices among legal experts and practitioners.

More generally, CONTENTION aimed to lay the foundation for the first European network of national judges hearing return cases, and to prepare the ground for further judicial cooperation and training of national judges in this field.