Basis for decision making: international protection for those who need it

The role of the Finnish Immigration Service is to determine which asylum seekers are in need of international protection. All asylum seekers that have come to Finland are not.

During the weekend, the quality and validity of the decisions of the Finnish Immigration Service have been discussed. The agency’s guidelines according to which asylum seekers can be returned to Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan have been subject to criticism. Negative decisions are often considered inhumane and the grounds for the decisions have been questioned.

It has been alleged in the media, for example, that the Finnish Immigration Service has intentionally made negative decisions. This is not true. There has been an increase in negative decisions because the agency has, for example, paid more closely attention to the credibility of the applicants’ stories, the possibility of internal flight and making sure that international protection is not granted to criminals. The context for this is the international comparison of asylum decision practises that the government obligated the agency to in its action plan on asylum policy.

The Finnish Immigration Service has observed that as the number of asylum seekers increased, the applicant profile also changed compared to the previous years. More applicants than before do not have grounds for being granted international protection. Most of the Iraqis who received a negative decision during the summer were from Bagdad, as were the Iraqis who withdrew their applications themselves and voluntarily returned home.

All in-house instructions for the Senior Advisers who make asylum decisions aim at enabling them to make correct decisions: identifying the asylum seekers who are in need of international protection and those who do not fulfil the requirements.

A country guideline is a judicial assessment which cannot be politically influenced

There has been a lot of confusion in the media about what a country guideline is and what it is based on.

The Finnish Immigration Service’s country guideline is a judicial assessment of whether an asylum seeker who does not have individual grounds for international protection can be returned to his or her home region. The country guideline is an assessment on whether there are regions of subsidiary protection where no applicant can be returned.

The Finnish Immigration Service makes the judicial assessments, that is, the country guidelines independently on the basis of current country of origin information, while also taking into account the decisions of the courts, including decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights and the EU Court of Justice.

Since the country guidelines constitute a judicial assessment, they themselves and the decisions based on them cannot be politically steered.

Court decisions support the guidelines on Iraq and Somalia

The Finnish Immigration Service’s decisions have publicly been criticised for being incorrect. This criticism has no basis in fact, as just below two per cent (2%) of the agency’s asylum decisions have been overturned this year because of an error in the interpretation of the law or a policy error.

The recent decisions of the Administrative Court of Helsinki confirm the Finnish Immigration Service’s guidelines: Sunnis can be returned to Bagdad and Shiites can seek internal protection in South Iraq. There have also already been decisions supporting the agency’s guidelines for Somalia. However, most of the appeals about this year’s decisions are still waiting to be processed by the Administrative Court of Helsinki.

According to a recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights concerning Sweden, asylum seekers who do not have individual grounds for being granted asylum or subsidiary protection can be returned to Iraq.

The situation in Iraq is unstable and the situation in Mosul and Falluja, for example, has deteriorated during the summer. At the moment, this is considered as country of origin information when making asylum decisions. Each asylum decision is made individually in accordance with the current situation and the current country of origin information. This means that we evaluate separately for each asylum seeker whether the person in question is granted protection or whether the person in question can at the present time return to his or her home country.

Open discussion is good but not that easy

Asylum matters easily stir up feelings. Open discussion is the norm today and criticising a governmental agency is a sign of a democratic society. We at the Finnish Immigration Service are ready for open interaction, although the complexity of the legislation concerning foreign nationals is not very easy to open up to the public.

“We also take seriously the signal that our culture for internal dialogue clearly is not yet open enough. This will be addressed right away. Initially we want to map the feelings of our whole staff regarding Sunday’s article in Helsingin Sanomat and the factors behind it,” says Director General Jaana Vuorio.

Further information for the media

Hanna Helinko, Director of Legal Service and Country Information Unit, tel. +358 295 430 431 , firstname.lastname@migri.fi