The European Court of Human Rights in a landmark ruling Tuesday found that Greece illegally deported a woman back to neighboring Turkey, and described the use of summary expulsions, or “pushbacks,” as systematic.

The decision could impact how Europe handles migrants at its borders, at a time when Greece and several European Union member states are seeking tougher immigration controls. Frontline EU member states receive financial support from Brussels to handle illegal migration.

A Turkish woman — identified by her initials A.R.E. — was awarded damages of 20,000 euros ($21,000) after the court ruled that she had been improperly expelled in 2019 after crossing into Greece, with no opportunity to make an asylum claim.

“The court considered that there were strong indications to suggest that there had existed, at the time of the events alleged, a systematic practice of ‘pushbacks’ of third-country nationals by the Greek authorities, from the Evros region (on the Greek border) to Turkey,” the decision said.

Citing a lack of evidence, the court rejected a second claim made by an Afghan man who said he had been illegally returned to Turkey from the Greek island of Samos in 2020 when he was 15.

Greek government representatives at the hearings denied the allegations, challenging the authenticity of the evidence presented and arguing that Greece’s border policies comply with international law.

Niamh Keady-Tabbal, a member of the legal team for the Afghan migrant, described the court’s decision as broadly significant but also “profoundly unjust” regarding the man’s case. “It is quite unjust that such a cynical position of blanket denial can serve in practice to shield the Greek government from accountability,” she told The Associated Press. The U.N. refugee agency has urged Greece to more thoroughly investigate multiple allegations of pushbacks, while several major human rights groups have described the alleged irregular deportations as systematic.

Greece’s National Transparency Authority, a publicly funded corruption watchdog, said it found no evidence to support the pushback allegations following a four-month investigation in 2022.

The European Court of Human Rights is an international court based in Strasbourg, France, that adjudicates human rights violations by 46 member states of the Council of Europe, a body older than the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community.

Greece registered more than 60,000 illegal arrivals of migrants last year, an increase of nearly 50% from 2023. It seeks direct funding from the EU to pay for the planned expansion of a border wall along the land frontier with Turkey.

(AP)