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

(d) “Kosovo Act”: in the light of the crisis in Kosovo, the Danish parliament passed a special
emergency act (Act no. 251 of 28 April 1999), which came into force on 30 April 1999. The act,
which applied to "foreigners from Kosovo”, covers both those arriving under the UNHCR
Humanitarian Evacuation Programme (approximately 2,820 persons) and those coming
spontaneously to Denmark after 30 April 2000.
According to the Kosovo Act, the processing of asylum applications is suspended for a maximum
period of two years, during which temporary protection may be granted. The examination of
asylum applications – for those who have applied for asylum – must resume after two years.
Temporary residence permits are granted for periods of six months at a time.
Persons with temporary residence permits according to the Kosovo Act are granted special rights
described below under “Social conditions for persons under temporary protection”.
In May 2000, in the light of UNHCR recommendations regarding Kosovo, the Minister of Interior
submitted a proposal to Parliament in order to revoke the provisions of the Kosovo Act and
resume the examination of asylum applications. For those Kosovo Albanians or other aliens from
Kosovo in need of continued temporary protection despite the rejection of their application,
Section 9.2.5 of the Aliens Act (see above) would be amended to cover them.
Rejection at the border
Asylum seekers may be refused entry into Denmark if they are not in possession of the travel
documentation required of any alien entering to Denmark as described under Section 28(1) of the
Aliens Act (passport, visa, etc.). Section 48.a(1) of the Act provides that an application for asylum
shall not be examined until a decision has been made on whether the alien must be transferred or
re-transferred to another state on the basis of the Dublin Convention (Section 29a of the Aliens Act),
or refused entry due to lack of documentation (Section 28(1) of the Aliens Act).
Section 48.a(2) contains a specific safeguard against refoulement, stating that “an alien must not be
expelled to a country in which he will risk persecution on the grounds set out in Article 1A of the
Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 28 July 1951, or in which the alien will not be
protected against further expulsion to such a country.”
The border police are not entitled to refuse entry to an alien claming asylum at a port of entry but
must refer all applications to the Danish Immigration Service, which comes under the Ministry of
Interior.
In practice, rejections at the border occur solely when the alien can be returned to a “safe third
country”. According to administrative practice, the following states are considered to be “safe third
countries”: Canada, USA, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Hungary (in some cases) and Poland (since
30 December 1999). Applicants processed under the provisions of the Dublin Convention are not
subject to any formal decision on entry, but allowed to await the outcome of the procedure within the
country. If the requested state accepts its responsibility, a formal decision of refusal of entry will be
notified to the applicant in connection with his/her transfer to that responsible state (see “The Dublin
Convention” below).
According to Section 28(2) of the Aliens Act, the Immigration Service must render its decision on
entry within three months, though this is usually done more rapidly. However, in those cases where
the police are unable to immediately establish an asylum seeker’s identity and travel route, and the
Immigration Service is therefore unable to take a decision on entry or rejection, the asylum seeker
will often be detained in a special detention centre in Sandholm, near Copenhagen. When the
Immigration Service decides that an asylum seeker shall be rejected on “safe third country” grounds,
the asylum seeker will also usually be detained until he/she can be returned to the third country (see
“Detention” below).
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Denmark