SAADI v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 21 seekers (see paragraphs 31 and 33-35 above). It concluded that while the process of examining those who are seeking asylum might involve necessary and incidental interference with liberty, where detention was resorted to for permitted purposes but on a fact-insensitive blanket basis, or effected purely for reasons of expediency or administrative convenience, it failed the necessity test required by international refugee and human rights law. b) Liberty, ECRE and the AIRE Centre 58. The above three non-governmental organisations pointed out that this would be the first case in which the Court had to decide on the meaning of the first limb of Article 5 § 1(f). They asked the Grand Chamber to hold, as a matter of general principle, (1) that in the absence of evidence that an individual asylum seeker would, but for being detained, effect or attempt to effect an unauthorised entry into the country, such detention does not fall within Article 5 § 1(f); and (2) that the detention of asylum seekers under Article 5 § 1(f), like detention under the other sub-paragraphs of Article 5 § 1 and the lesser restriction imposed on their freedom of movement under Article 2 of Protocol No. 4, must be subject to the test of necessity and proportionality. 59. The Chamber's approach, based on the finding that the detention of an asylum seeker was covered by the second limb of Article 5 § 1(f) where no positive decision on his or her claim had yet been made, sat uncomfortably with the principle that asylum seekers who had duly presented a claim for international protection were ipso facto lawfully within the territory for the purposes of Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 and also Article 12 of the ICCPR (see paragraph 32 above). Whilst it was true, as the Chamber had held, that prolonged duration might render arbitrary a detention which was not so at the outset, the reverse was not the case; the brevity of the period could not justify unnecessary detention. Article 5 § 1(f) of the Convention should be interpreted consistently with Article 9 of the ICCPR (see paragraph 31 above), which required that any deprivation of liberty imposed in an immigration context should be lawful, necessary and proportionate. Moreover, it would be inappropriate for the Court, in the first Grand Chamber judgment on the first limb of Article 5 § 1(f), to adopt a lower level of protection than that which had already been agreed by the Member States through the Committee of Ministers (see paragraph 37 above) or than that which applied to mere restrictions on freedom of movement under Article 2 of Protocol No. 4. 60. In many States, the precise legal basis for the detention of asylum seekers was unclear, but cases were unlikely to reach the courts because of language difficulties, lack of legal representation and fear on the part of asylum seekers that complaints about detention might prejudice the outcome of their claims. The arbitrary nature of such detention would be exacerbated