The In Functionality of Dublin System

The In Functionality of Dublin System Presented by: Dr. Frumarová Date: 19 October 2023 Dublin System – Research Areas And Questions - What is the "Dublin system" and what were and are its main functions and purpose? - How has the Dublin system changed and evolved? The Dublin System – General Characteristics And Functions - The aim of the Dublin system is to eliminate the phenomenon known as 'asylum shopping', whereby the proceedings on an alien's application are carried out simultaneously or successively by several Member States to which the alien purposefully transfers, - And at the same time to avoid a situation known as 'refugee in orbit', whereby, on the contrary, no State is considered competent to examine the application for international protection on the merits, as it applies the third safe country principle to the Member States of the European Union in which the applicant for international protection resided before arriving in the State which is now assessing the application. - = The mechanism by which a single State is designated within the Member States of the European Union, as well as Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, to examine and decide on an alien's application for international protection, wherever the application for international protection is lodged within the territory of those States. - For an applicant for international protection, the Dublin system generally means that he has the right to have his application for international protection examined on the merits in only one Member State of the European Union (the so-called "one-chance-only principle") Dublin System – History (Dublin I and Dublin II) - The European Union took the first steps towards creating a common immigration and asylum policy at the Tampere Summit in 1999, when this unification goal was defined as "a common European asylum system, including procedures and status" for refugees across Europe. - However, the modern institution of asylum has its roots already in the League of Nations, when after the First World War, documents confirming this necessity and need were given to persons in need of international protection, the so-called Nansen passport - The development of the asylum system and refugees within the European Union itself can be divided into three periods. - We date the beginning to the 1980s and we are talking about the period when the subjects and principles of the common European framework were created. - It was in the 1980s that member states faced a significant increase in the number of migrants and refugees, which posed a threat to their security and stability. Along with the increased number of migrants, the number of asylum applications has also increased, leading to an overload of the responsible authorities of the Member States, a drain on resources, huge deficiencies in the procedures and delays in the examination of applications. - In order to improve this situation, Member States have adopted individual restrictive measures. These measures were influenced by the economic and political requirements in each country and focused on management procedures rather than substance. Although these restrictive measures were not individually insufficient or ineffective, they had an immediate negative effect on neighboring states. The whole situation led to a kind of race for which state would have the most restrictive policy, which required a response at the pan-European level. - The second phase is presented by measures leading to a change of national approaches towards mutual cooperation procedures still for the most part only in the form of legally non-enforceable recommendations and instructions. The goal of this transformation was the convergence of national asylum policies. An important milestone in the history of determining jurisdiction for the assessment of asylum applications was the Schengen Implementation Convention from 1990. - It was signed in connection with the creation of a European area without internal borders, the freeing of the movement of persons on the territory of the contracting states of this convention and the fulfillment of the Schengen Agreement, which is the most well-known a legal document of cooperation within the Schengen area. However, these rules were not sufficient due to the small number of signatories. - The third phase aims to create common European legislation on asylum and refugees. - The provisions of the Schengen Implementation Convention were replaced by the Convention on the Determination of the State Competent for Assessing an Asylum Application Submitted in one of the EC Member States, the so-called Dublin Convention of 1990, which entered into force on September 1, 1997. Its signatories were the states of the European Union together with Norway and Iceland. - The Dublin Convention laid the foundations for the redistribution of responsibility for the assessment of an asylum application in Europe, when the main idea was that the first European country where the applicant entered would be the only country in which his application would be processed. - In October 1999, the European Council in Tampere decided to work on a common European asylum system, the basis of which will be the full and comprehensive application of the Geneva Convention on Refugees from 1951, supplemented by the New York Protocol (1967). With reference to this convention, compliance with the nonrefoulement principle was to be guaranteed, among other things, which guaranteed that no one would be returned to a place where they would be subjected to persecution. - After evaluating the principles and application of the Dublin Convention, in June 2001 the European Commission submitted a proposal for the adoption of a regulation establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining a Member State to assess an asylum application. This Regulation no. 343/2003 = "Dublin II" was adopted on 18 February 2003 and replaced the Dublin Convention a month later. - Council Regulation no. 2725/2000 of 11 December 2000 on the establishment of the Eurodac system for comparing fingerprints supplemented the entire Dublin system. Dublin III - = Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council (EU) No. 604/2013 - At the moment, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is mainly made up of the following essential documents: - Dublin Regulation (Dublin III), Qualification Directive, Procedural Directive, Admission Directive and Regulation (EU) No. 603/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26/06/2013 on the establishment of the "Eurodac" system for comparing fingerprints. - Dublin III, tries to respond to the shortcomings of previous amendments and thus improve the efficiency of the entire system. However, the basic principles remain the same as in the case of the previous Dublin Regulation, in particular the position that the Member State which played the greatest role in the applicant's entry into the territory of the Member States is responsible for assessing the application for international protection. Great emphasis is placed on protecting unaccompanied minors and maintaining family integrity. - Changes: • Dublin II included only asylum seekers, the current revised wording also covers applicants for international protection and allows them to better defend their rights. • A completely new tool is the early warning, preparedness and crisis resolution mechanism, • In the area of detention of applicants, the only permissible reason for detention for the purpose of relocation is established, and that is the reason of a serious risk of flight. • Member States are obliged to guarantee an appeal against a decision on relocation, against each such decision the applicant should have the opportunity to use an appeal within a reasonable period with a suspensive effect, • When applying the previous Dublin Regulation, the level and form of informing applicants was also often criticized. The personal interview institute is supposed to contribute to the improvement of informing the applicant. - Key principles: • The principle of non-refoulement, an explicit reference to the application of general sources of international refugee law and emphasizing the importance of the principle of family unity, • The principle of solidarity and mutual trust • The core principle continues to be the review of the application for the granting of asylum always and only by one member state with the aim of preventing review in several countries, • The right to return the applicant for international protection to a safe third country - Criteria for determining the relevant state: individual criteria are applied in the order in which they are listed in the Regulation, at the time of submitting an application for international protection. As already mentioned above, priority criteria are family ties and the principle of family unity. Dublin III – Criteria - If the relocation cannot be carried out to any Member State determined on the basis of these criteria or to the first Member State where the application was made, the Member State conducting the procedure for determining the competent Member State becomes the competent Member State. Dublin III also contains discretionary provisions in relation to Member States. The "sovereignty clause" allows member states to take responsibility for an application made on their territory, even if they are not the relevant member state according to the criteria. - The "humanitarian provision" provides that the Member State in which international protection is requested and which conducts the proceedings, or the competent Member State, may, at any time before the first decision on the merits is issued, request another Member State to take over the applicant for humanitarian reasons arising from in particular for family or cultural reasons, with the aim of reuniting other family members as well, even if that Member State is not competent according to the above criteria.