Changes to the Refugee act implemented ....
on Monday.
The introduction of a 'whitelist' of countries:
These are Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. Applicants from these countries will have to 'rebut the presumption' that they do not need asylum. Appeals will be dealt with on the basis of paper review, rather then oral hearing. Prioritise applications from these countries.
Creation of a statutory duty on applicants to pursue their application actively and to co-operate with the processing authorities.
Expansion of items to be considered in determining the credibility of an applicant. These items include having no reason for missing or forged travel documents, giving incorrect or false information on methods of travel to Ireland, and unexplained delays in making an application.
Fingerprinting all applicants, not just those over 14 years!
Increasing the allowed period of detention between court appearances from 10 to 21 days.
Revamping the operation of the Dublin convention.
Now transfer will be by transfer order, rather than by deportation order as previously. Appeals can still be made but only from outside the country.
The new rules will apply from 15th September to people who have just arrived and to people who have not been interviewed so far.
The word on the site is that a squad of DOJ officials have appeared on the arrival site at Baleskin and are rapidly processing the people from the whitelist countries. It looks as though they want to get to a situation of zero asylum applications from EU accession countries by May 1 2004.
posted by Carigeen at Wednesday, September 17, 2003
