If you read an asylum decision you should read all of it

Migri

9.3.2017 12.11

Press release

Negative asylum decisions have recently been featured frequently in the media and they have been read aloud on different occasions.

The decisions are confidential on the part of the authorities. The Finnish Immigration Service cannot comment or publish decisions in the same way the asylum seekers themselves can. Secrecy is maintained to protect the privacy of the asylum seeker. If you use an asylum seeker’s decision text in the public domain, please, make sure that the asylum seeker knows in which context you are publishing his or her personal information and that once a text has been published on the internet it remains there.

Structure of an asylum decision

All administrative decisions have a certain clear structure. Asylum decisions are not an exception. In an asylum decision, we go through the situation of the asylum seeker and the judicial evaluation of the decision:

First we repeat what the asylum seeker himself or herself has said during the asylum interview. This part of the decision often contains brutal and serious matters.
The most extensive part of the decision is where the credibility of the asylum seeker is evaluated. We also evaluate if what the asylum seeker has said about his or her situation is credible in the light of what we know about the situation in the country. It is central for the asylum seeker’s legal protection that he or she knows on which facts the judicial evaluation in the decision is based.
After that, we go through all the criteria for international protection and see whether the asylum seeker fulfils them. The criteria for international protection come from the law. We also evaluate whether the asylum seeker in the future is in risk of persecution everywhere in his or her home country.

Why can a decision seem contradictory?

In the decision, we always state the reasons for why we have reached a certain outcome. That is why, when reading the decision, you should also read the grounds for the decision. If the outcome in a published decision seems illogical, the publisher may have cut out something essential from the text.

A frequent quotation is a sentence that states that the asylum seeker’s fear has or has not been objectively well-founded. It is understandable that a person can be afraid of many things but to be granted international protection an asylum seeker’s fear has to have other grounds than his or her own perception of the situation.

There has also been some confusion about why an asylum seeker can be given a negative decision even though he or she has experienced persecution or torture. According to the law, our duty is to evaluate whether the asylum seeker also is in risk of similar persecution if he or she returned to his or her home country. Perhaps those persecuting the asylum seeker have left or the asylum seeker is not in risk of persecution in another region.

The decision may also seem contradictory if so called internal protection is applied in the decision. This means that we find that the asylum seeker is in fact in risk of persecution in his or her home region but he or she can receive protection in another region of his or her home country. The possibility of internal protection is always evaluated individually for each asylum seeker. The first alternative is always that the asylum seeker receives protection in his or her own country.

Recently the structure has been improved

The structure and basis of the decision texts have been developed during the rush that started in 2015, as the Finnish Immigration Service has had to make a record number of decisions. Increasing efficiency does not mean that decisions are mass-produced. Each decision is written just for the asylum seeker in question and just his or her possibility to be granted international protection is examined.

The agency has access to a lot of country information. Parts of the same source of country information can be attached to the decisions of different asylum seekers if the situations of the asylum seekers are similar. The decision is, however, always made according to the situation of each asylum seeker. The decisions are of high-quality and genuinely equal if the same country information is used for similar asylum seekers. Sharing country information also saves the time of the person making the decisions, because he or she can concentrate all his or her possible time on the evaluation of the asylum seeker’s situation.