Tougher Greek Asylum Law Criticised by Rights Groups

It increases the number of people who will have to undergo border admissibility procedures before they can submit a proper asylum request. Even unaccompanied children and other vulnerable asylum seekers could be examined in future under accelerated procedures; PTSD is scrapped from the list of conditions that entitle applicants to obtain vulnerable status.

Asylum claims will be now considered implicitly withdrawn and rejected if applicants fail to satisfy specific procedural formalities.

The changes also narrow the definition of "family members", to exclude families established after migrants left their country of origin.

Appeals procedures are also affected, by upgrading the requirements about documentation as well as scrapping the independent experts sitting in second-instance committees. These will now comprise only judges, a move that critics say could potentially slow down the committees' work and diminish the quality of their procedures.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALEXANDROS BELTES

Civil society organisations have criticised the new legislation for diminishing safeguards. Vassillis Papastergiou, from the Hellenic League for Human Rights, HLHR, says the government avoided real discussion of the new law by allowing only five days for public consultation. "The government wants mostly to show that is taking action, and it's attempting to satisfy an audience that expects a tougher response to migration and refugee issues," he said.

Regarding the promise of faster procedures and swifter returns of failed applicants, Papastergiou told BIRN the outcome would more likely be a less regulated system. "People will end up undocumented, in many cases without the possibility of being returned, leading...

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