On July 17, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) issued a preliminary ruling in the joined cases of Adala Bero v. Regierungspräsidium Kassel and Ettayebi Bouzalmate v. Kreisverwaltung Kleve that the detention of a third-party national must, as a rule, take place in a specialized facility and may only take place in a prison on exceptional basis.  The Court held that the Directive 2008/115/EC, which provides the common standards and procedures in EU Member States for returning third-country nationals, requires “a Member State, as a rule, to detain illegally staying third-country nationals for the purpose of removal in a specialised detention facility of that State even if the Member State has a federal structure and the federated state competent to decide upon and carry out such detention under national law does not have such a detention facility.”  According to the press release, this rule “applies even if the third-country national concerned has given his consent to being accommodated in prison.”