English

Standard 1 Legal Relevance of COIis in some countries less clear and less widely accepted when assessing the entitlement tosubsidiary forms of protection or when applying “safe country” concepts than in regularrefugee status determination, the above judgments are definitely of importance.VI.3 Mandatory Assessment of “Actual” Legal PracticesVI.3.1 LegislationAnother binding provision of EU asylum legislation that can be referred to in connectionwith the legal relevance of COI is set forth by Article 4 (3) (a) of the QualificationDirective and reads as follows:3. The assessment of an application for international protection is to be carried out on anindividual basis and includes taking into account:(a) all relevant facts as they relate to the country of origin at the time of taking adecision on the application; including laws and regulations of the country of originand the manner in which they are applied;The Procedures Directive further elaborates on the same principle in connectionwith the safe country of origin 51 and the safe third country 52 concept. These provisionsoblige member states to examine not only what the law says in a certain country, butto assess to what extent and in what manner the provisions in question are applied.From a COI professional’s point of view, the importance of this provision lies withinthe fact that it prevents decision-makers from using exclusively the text of laws of thecountries of origin as factual evidence. While such legal provisions may be in line withhuman rights principles or seem to ensure protection against persecution and other sortsof harm, in practice they often fail to do so.EU member states transposed the above criterion into their national legislation.A rather particular legislative interpretation can be referred to in Slovenia, where thelaw-maker decided to link the “regulations of the country of origin” to the concept of“general” COI and the “manner in which they are applied” to “specific” COI. 53 Thisapproach may be questionable in light of the fact that mere legislative provisions (e.g.existence of “moral crimes” or the criminalisation of draft evasion or homosexuality) canconstitute COI of great individual impact on an applicant, while information on howhuman rights standards embedded in law are applied in practice can also be of rathergeneral character.51Procedures Directive, Article 30 (4) and Annex II52Ibid., Article 27 (1) and 36 (2)53Law on International Protection, Section 23 (1) – full citation in Chapter VI.2.137