legal and social conditions for asylum seekers and refugees in ...

Republic and for Polish Romas. Even during a shorter interview, the asylum seeker is given the
opportunity to explain the reasons why he/she is seeking asylum in Finland.
Manifestly unfounded procedure
Since 1998, the previous two procedures for clearly unfounded applications and for manifestly
unfounded applications have been merged into a single manifestly unfounded procedure under
Section 34 of the Aliens Act. According to this provision, an application for asylum shall be
considered manifestly unfounded if:
1. the applicant has not claimed as grounds serious violations of human rights or other reasons
related to injunctions against repatriation or fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion;
2. the application is lodged with the intent to abuse the asylum procedure;
3. the applicant has entered Finland from a safe country in which he/she could have received
protection and to which he/she can safely be returned.
According to Section 33a of the Aliens Act, safe countries are “countries which, without a
geographic reservation, have acceded to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees
and comply therewith as well as with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment”. There is no list of “safe third countries”, and the decision to consider a country
as being “safe” is made on an individual basis. Both the Czech Republic and Hungary have
been considered as “safe third countries” in relation to the Slovak Roma applicants;
4. the applicant can be sent to another State, which, according to the Dublin Convention, is
responsible for processing his/her claim for asylum.
If it considers that any of the grounds mentioned in the above-mentioned Section 34 applies, the
Directorate of Immigration takes a decision of rejection on manifestly unfounded grounds and
makes an expulsion decision at the same time.
All negative decisions by the Directorate of Immigration are automatically referred to the Helsinki
Administrative Court for examination. The applicant can submit a rejoinder within eight days of
notification of the Directorate’s decision. Legal assistance before the court is allowed and the
applicant may be granted free legal aid. The procedure is written and there is no hearing. The
Court can be composed of a single judge. The Court’s decisions are final.
If the Court agrees with the Directorate’s opinion, the latter’s decision is final and cannot be
appealed. If the Court disagrees with this decision, the case is referred back to the Directorate of
Immigration for a new decision. Usually, the application will then be transferred under the normal
determination procedure. It may also be that the Directorate of Immigration takes another
decision declaring the application manifestly unfounded on other grounds.
Under current legislation, there is no time limit for the Directorate or for the Administrative Court
to make their decision, and the time required to process an application under the manifestly
unfounded procedure is between 3 and 12 months.
In March 2000, the Government submitted to Parliament a Bill amending the Aliens Act,
according to which both the Directorate of Immigration and the Helsinki Administrative Court
would be required to make their decision within one week, in cases where the applicants have
come from a “safe third country” or a “safe country of origin”. The Bill reintroduces the “safe
country or origin” concept and provides for a system with three different kinds of manifestly
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Finland