Publication Archives - Page 3 of 13

Working in a Challenging Environment – Legal Unit, pt 1

by Alexis Galand, Senior Legal Officer, Legal Unit, aditus foundation

An excerpt of Alexis’ input to aditus foundation’s Annual Activity Report for 2021. The full Annual Report 2021 may be downloaded here (.pdf). In the coming weeks we’ll be publishing the other team member inputs to the Annual Report.

I started working with the aditus foundation in May 2021 as their new Legal Officer. In this position, I was responsible for the organisation of the newly formed legal unit of the NGO, composed of a Junior Legal Officer, a Case Officer and one or more interns, and my role also involved in-depth legal work which required more advanced knowledge of European and Asylum law. This included written and oral submissions for appeals before the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) after a rejection on the asylum application and detention and age assessments appeals before the Immigration Appeals Board (IAB). This proved particularly challenging due to a certain lack of expertise, or willingness, of several members of these quasi-judicial bodies appointed by the executive, with limited safeguards guaranteeing their independence and impartiality.

A year of action: aditus foundation Annual Report 2021 is published

We have just published our Annual Report 2021. The Report covers all our activities throughout the year, giving an overview of projects, advocacy initiatives, publications, legal work and internal issues.

The full Annual Report 2021 may be downloaded here (.pdf). In the coming weeks we’ll be publishing our team members’ inputs to the Annual Report. The input below is our Director’s.

If you have any questions or would like to reach out to see how you could support our 2022 and further activities, just get in touch.

Report on the Obstacles in accessing Proper and Correction Documentation

The right to access employment, social services, education and other services essential to a dignified life are inextricably linked to the possession of personal documents, such as an identity document or a residence document. These identification documents usually display a person’s name and surname, country of birth, nationality, date of birth, country of residence and also address.

An identity or residence document contains a person’s information which also includes the person’s legal status in the issuing country. In this context, the legal status would refer to the law or regulation on which their right to reside in a particular country is based.

The right to access employment, social services, education and other services essential to a dignified life are inextricably linked to the possession of personal documents, such as an identity document or a residence document. These identification documents usually display a person’s name and surname, country of birth, nationality, date of birth, country of residence and also address.

An identity or residence document contains a person’s information which also includes the person’s legal status in the issuing country. In this context, the legal status would refer to the law or regulation on which their right to reside in a particular country is based.

Just launched: training kit on empowering refugee-led community organisations!

We are extremely happy to share the result of 2 years’ hard work! On 5 June 2022 we launched a Training Kit designed to support the empowerment of refugee-led groups. Funded by the Erasmus+ programme, the Training Kit on Empowering Refugee-Led Community Organisations wants to strengthen refugee protection by elevating refugee-led groups from ‘beneficiaries’ to active and equal advocacy partners.

We designed a training package that is user-friendly, adaptable to different national contexts and targeting both information and skills needs.

The Training Kit is actually two products. One intended for refugees wishing to be national advocates and the other for those organisations targeting EU-level advocacy.

We’ve commented on proposals to amend Malta’s asylum regime

On Monday 13 June we sent the Home Affairs Ministry and the Opposition our comments on proposals to amend Malta’s asylum regime.

Bill No. 2, the International Protection (Amendment) Bill, was presented in Parliament on 7 May 2022. At the time of writing these Technical Comments, the Bill was before Parliament, yet we received no invitation to discuss or consult.

We appeal to the Ministry and to Parliament to promote a consultative approach to law-making, particularly in situations involving highly technical matters that require in-depth knowledge and experience working in the relevant fields of law, such as EU asylum law.

Our comments (.pdf) are available here.