PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ADVOCATES TIGHTER ASYLUM POLICY
A parliamentary committee on asylum policies has presented a report that is likely to lead to a further tightening of the country's asylum and immigration policies.
A declared aim of the proposals is to reduce state expenditure at a time when Sweden is coping with an unprecedented state debt and ensuing tough austerity measures.
The report predicts that European countries are facing a "continually growing migration pressure" caused by the rapid growth of world population and an income gap between the northern and the southern hemisphere that has doubled within 30 years.
According to the report, this will inevitably lead to a constant rise of the costs of refugee reception and social assistance. The Committee emphasises the high cost of refugee reception (20 billion Swedish crowns in 1992-1994, when the number of refugees increased massively due to the war in Yugoslavia).
In future Sweden should focus more on "preventive measures" contributing to reduce refugee and migrant flows, says the report. The long term goal of refugee policies should be "voluntary return". Refugees should in the first line be granted protection in "their own regions".
Based on the above fairly controversial assessments the Committee lists a number of concrete proposals, including:
- abolition of the eligibility for asylum of war resisters, "de facto" and "political-humanitarian" refugees, as stated by the present alien law;
Punishment of smuggling of illegal migrants with up to four years' imprisonment (instead of two);
Restriction of asylum on "humanitarian grounds" to "seriously ill" persons.
Mandatory photographing and finger-printing for all asylum-seekers;
Increased identity checks inside the country;
Abolition of the right for aged parents of aliens legally residing in Sweden to join their children on family reunification grounds.
The report also proposes measures intended to improve the rights of refugees and immigrants, such as:
- temporary stay permits for "protection-seekers" in situations of mass flight (such as war, environmental catastrophes); temporary permits shall be issued for 2 years at most and refugees tolerated under this scheme may apply for asylum on Convention grounds only once the temporary permit has expired;
Increased use of interviews of the applicants in the asylum examination procedure; interviews shall be tape-recorded in the interest of a fair procedure.
Rise of the minimum age-limit for detention under the alien law to 18 years;
Granting of temporary stay permits pending paternity enquiries;
More liberal interpretation of the term "refugee" under the Geneva convention, in compliance with the recommendations of the UNHCR.
Sources: Svenska Dagbladet, 30.6.95; Svensk flyktingpolitik i ett globalt perspektiv, report of the Parliamentary Committee on Refugee Policies, Summary, SOU 1995:75.
Comment
Thanks to lobbying of FARR (the Swedish Network for Asylum and Refugee Groups) and other Swedish NGOs concerned with asylum and human rights, the refugee policy report is less anti-asylum than originally expected by most observers. The report even recommends some measures that, if introduced, would improve the legal security of asylum-seekers. Thus, the proposal of tape-recording interviews would provide an opportunity for applicants and their lawyers to question and eventually have corrected the immigration authorities' records of interviews. This is all the more important, as the only interviews with the applicants are often conducted in an atmosphere of stress and intimidation, shortly after the arrival of the asylum-seeker, and by ill-trained officers and interpreters. All this can lead to misunderstandings and lack of precision that can crucially affect the final decision on an application.
The Committee also refrained from proposing the introduction of special fines - so-called "carrier sanctions" - against airlines and other transport companies bringing insufficiently documented aliens to Sweden. As before, carriers are merely liable to pay the costs of an eventual return.
However, the main problem with some of the more "liberal" proposals of the report is their lack of precision. The Committee claims that the abolition of a series of protection criteria in the present law (war resisters, "de facto" refugees, etc.) will not significantly affect applicants' chances of obtaining asylum, as it simultaneously calls for a more "liberal" interpretation of the protection criteria under the Geneva Convention on Refugees. In reality, however, the proposal amounts to replacing fairly liberal established criteria by an all too non-committing pledge to respect the Convention. By doing so, the parliamentary committee is merely putting the responsibility for a likely further restriction of asylum practice on the executive authorities who will obviously have their own interpretation of the Convention.
N.B.