Turkey: Seminar on legal protection of rights of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers

Turkey: Seminar on legal protection of rights of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers

Today begins in Istanbul (Turkey) a two-day seminar for lawyers and CSO practitioners representing and working with migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers.

This event is organized by ICJ, in cooperation with its partners Refugee Rights Turkey, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), Mülteci-Der (MD) and ICJ-EI, as part of the EU co-financed project Fostering Access to Rights for Migrants, Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Turkey.

40 lawyers and civil society practitioners – representing different bar associations and relevant organisations from the all over Turkey – are taking part in the seminar on 12 and 13 May.

The seminar aims to update lawyers and CSOs on the international law mechanisms in the United Nations and the Council of Europe, deputed to the protection of the rights of refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers . It aims at an effective implementation of the Turkish legal framework on asylum and migration.

The training will use as a basis the draft training materials prepared by the ICJ and its partners (to be published an the end of 2019) and, among other sources, the ICJ Practitioners Guide no. 6: Migration and International Human Rights Law.

The project “Fostering Access to Rights for Migrants, Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Turkey” is funded by the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) of the European Union.

Turkey-Seminar-Istanbul-MigrationAsylum-Agenda-2018-eng (download the agenda)

Spain: ICJ and others intervene in case of push backs of asylum seekers

Spain: ICJ and others intervene in case of push backs of asylum seekers

The ICJ and other NGOs jointly intervened before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in a case against Spain on the denial of entry of asylum seekers in the enclave of Melilla.

The ICJ, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, the AIRE Centre, Amnesty International and the Dutch Refugee Council argued that the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits refusal of entry, and/or return of a person to face serious violations of human rights, including of the right to life, the prohibition of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or flagrant denial of justice and of the right to liberty.

They submitted that these refusals of entry are also contrary to the rights set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR) and the prohibition on non-refoulement found in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention).

The joint interventions presents the argument that, for these prohibitions to be practical and effective and not theoretical and illusory, Contracting Parties must have in place effective systems for identifying people within their jurisdiction who are entitled to benefit from the prohibition on refusing entry.

Spain-ICJ&others-AmicusBrief-ND&NT-ECtHR-GC-legalsubmission-2018 (download the thirty party intervention)

Joint Submission on the State of Access to Justice for Migrants in Europe

Joint Submission on the State of Access to Justice for Migrants in Europe

The ICJ and ECRE have presented today to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants a submission on access to justice for migrants in Europe.

The submission is an input for the forthcoming report of the UN Special Rapporteur on access to justice for migrants to the UN General Assembly.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) have provided a brief overview of aspects of access to justice for migrants, with a particular focus on asylum seekers and migrant children, in European countries.

The issues dealt with include:

  • obstructions to access to justice in relation to access to the territory;
  • the undue use of national security exceptions to weaken access to justice in immigration procedures;
  • concerns with access to justice in expulsion and detention procedures;
  • specific obstacles to access to justice for asylum seekers, including when appealing the rejection of their claims by first instance asylum authorities before a judicial or administrative appeal body;
  •  specific obstacles to access to justice for undocumented minors.

ICJECRE-NonLegalSubmission-SRMigrants-Access2JusticeEurope4Migrants-2018-ENG (download the submission)

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