After a conflict on the migration issue with the neighboring country, Lithuania is going hard on migrants. A newly passed bill (21 July 2021) will allow authorities to detain asylum seekers entering from Belarus. The new law also helps the government to restrain the right of appeal against the rejection of the application. According to the changed asylum rules:
- the new bill prevents any release of migrants from detention for six months after their arrival.
- It also restrains the right of appeal for rejected asylum-seekers and stipulates that migrants can be deported while their appeals are under consideration.
On Wednesday, President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda signed the Law Amending the Law on the Legal Status of Migrants, adopted by the Lithuanian parliament “Seimas” as a matter of urgency on 20 July. At the same time, with the certificate of the Head of State that the rights of the asylum application must be limited.
At present, it is better to have a law than to have no regulation and measures to manage emergencies on the Lithuanian border with Belarus. This would send a completely unacceptable signal to the countries of origin of migration, “President Gitanas Nausėda said.
In the opinion of the President, in the current emergency situations due to the influx of international foreign states, certain measures may be taken restricting the rights and freedoms of individuals, but these restrictions must be proportionate to the aim pursued and justified. They may not be imposed on a permanent basis and the right to seek asylum shall not be restricted or necessary.
Several non-governmental organizations have said the decision to detain the migrants violates Lithuania’s international obligations, as well as the rights of the asylum seekers.
The main doubts of the country’s leaders are the fact that the immediate execution of the decision of the migration department that has examined the complaint abroad in a pre-trial procedure is obligatory. Thus violating the principle of non-return of an asylum application, i. y. that the person cannot be returned to his or her country of origin or to a third country without having been assured of his or her safety. Also permanently from the right to accept an asylum application to appeal against the decision of the court of the first instance in an appellate procedure, despite the fact that the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania does not allow the establishment of such legal regulation, which is a fair regulating judge.
European countries that have faced refugee influxes in the past already have quite effective recipes for managing migratory flows. Here, for example, Denmark has supported the sending of asylum seekers outside Europe. In early June, the Danish parliament passed a law allowing the opening of reception centres outside Europe for asylum seekers to live while their cases are pending.
Asylum seekers are people who seek help from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan or other countries and flee to the EU. And this has not resisted the bombing of Iraq, which has killed and injured more than 1 million 400,000 people in the country and destroyed much of Iraq’s infrastructure, and people are also suffering from the daily violence. The EU has also supported military action against the Syrian leader, dictator Bashar al-Assad, which has led to an influx of people fleeing and returning to Iraq: more than 224,000 have fled to Iraq, living in extreme vulnerability.