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Legal support for asylum seekers

There is different types of legal counselling for asylum seekers:

Free legal counselling

You can request free legal counselling to be provided at your reception centre, at a service point of the Finnish Immigration Service or via video conference. Your reception centre will tell you how free legal counselling can be arranged.

Free legal counselling means that you can be given advice on:

  • your rights and obligations
  • the different procedures
  • legal issues
  • appealing against a decision on international protection
  • filling in the form that you received when you registered your application
    • If you were given a family tracing form to be completed.

When you wish to request free legal counselling: 

  • you can contact the police, the border authorities or the Finnish Immigration Service; they will forward your request to a Legal Information Officer of the Finnish Immigration Service, or 
  • you can send encrypted email (from the website securemail.migri.fi) to the address mone@migri.fi.

Free legal counselling can be offered in a group meeting or in an individual meeting 

The Finnish Immigration Service aims to arrange free legal counselling as early as possible so that you can get it before an interview.

Each applicant will be invited to a group meeting where free legal counselling is provided before the meeting where the applicant lodges their application. In the group meeting, you will receive information about the initial stages of the asylum application and instructions on what you need to do during the process. You will receive a separate invitation to the group meeting for free legal counselling. If you wish to receive free legal counselling in a group meeting, you do not need to make a separate request.

You can also request free legal counselling for you personally at any stage of the processing of your application for international protection. You must always make a separate request if you wish to receive individual counselling. Free legal counselling in an individual meeting will not be arranged for you if you have not explicitly requested for individual counselling. 

It is important that you request individual free legal counselling well in advance so that we are can arrange it for you at the right time, for example before your asylum interview. When you have made a request, you will receive a separate invitation to individual free legal counselling.

The free legal counselling meeting will be attended by a Legal Information Officer and, when necessary, an interpreter. The Legal Information Officer does not have influence over the processing of your application for international protection and cannot affect the decision. The Legal Information Officer will not discuss your matter with the Finnish Immigration Service officials who examine asylum applications.

Please note that you cannot get free legal counselling in the following situations:

  • When you have a counsel    
    • Your counsel gives you the assistance you need during the processing of your application for international protection.
  • Review of the interview report from your asylum interview
    • The Legal Information Officer does not read the interview report for you and does not make additions or corrections to the interview report on your behalf. 
  • Enquiries about processing times
    • The Legal Information Officer cannot affect the processing time of your application or check the processing situation of your application.
  • When your application is one of the following:
    • A first subsequent application which you have made only to delay or prevent the imminent enforcement of a final decision on removal from the country issued on the basis of an earlier application.
    • A second or further subsequent application.

Legal aid

You may get legal aid during the processing of your application for international protection. Legal aid is provided by a legally trained professional in different stages of the processing of your application. Legal aid is usually subject to a fee, unless the legal aid office decides otherwise. The legal aid office assesses your need for legal aid and makes a decision on whether to grant you legal aid.

Ask your reception centre for more information about the places where you can get legal aid.

Read more about legal aid (oikeus.fi)

We recommend that your legal counsel uses our online service: Enter Finland for Counsels and Representatives.

Other counsels

If it is not possible for you to get legal aid to assist you during the processing of your application, you may authorise someone else to assist you. This person does not need to be a lawyer or have any other judicial expertise. 

Note that if you authorise a person to act as your counsel, they have access to everything concerning your application, including sensitive information. Your counsel may attend the asylum interview with you and may hear all the grounds you have for your application for international protection. The Finnish Immigration Service may serve the decision on your counsel, and you will then receive a notification of the decision. Your counsel should review the decision together with you and assist you if you wish to appeal against the Finnish Immigration Service’s decision on your application for international protection.

If you have a counsel, you cannot get free legal counselling during the processing of your application.

We recommend that your counsel uses the Enter Finland for Counsels and Representatives online service.

Enter Finland for Counsels and Representatives

Your counsel can use the online service which is intended for counsels: Enter Finland for Counsels and Representatives (enterfinland.fi). In the online service, your counsel can:

  • follow the status of your application
  • send additional information regarding the application
  • request documents concerning your matter directly to the counsel’s Enter Finland account
  • receive requests for additional information from the Finnish Immigration Service and respond to them directly from the online service.