Speaking at a news conference, state secretary Pál Völner said the case of two Bangladeshi asylum seekers who were detained and deported in 2015 will go before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Wednesday.

Last March, the ECtHR said that Hungary had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by detaining the two asylum seekers in the Röszke transit zone near Hungary’s southern border. The court also said that authorities later sent them back to Serbia, which the ECtHR said had put them under the risk of facing inhumane treatment in the Greek refugee reception centres.

The court ordered Hungary to pay the asylum seekers 10,000 euros each in compensation. In addition, the state was ordered to pay 7,500 euros in legal fees to the Helsinki Committee, which had taken on their legal representation. Hungary appealed the decision.

Referring to the court’s ruling, Völner said it was “unacceptable” that a sovereign state should not have the right to protect its borders.

He said the only thing that was known about the current situation of the asylum seekers was that one of them was residing in Spain while the other had filed for asylum in Germany but had been denied. However, Germany has not yet been able to deport the asylum seeker, he added.

Völner said cases like these were about “absorbing nation states” and “thwarting” their border protection efforts “based on laws that go against European Union law”, and “flooding Europe with migrants”.

Hungary will continue to take action against such efforts in the future, too, Völner said, adding that Hungary would also continue to represent the interests of its voters at every international forum.

The state secretary said the government expects the Wednesday hearing to be a “contest of meaningful legal arguments”. Völner said a verdict could be expected in six months to a year’s time.