Last month, Cyprus adopted Law No 73(I)/2018 establishing an International Protection Administrative Court (IPAC), which will examine appeals relating to provisions of the Refugee Law. This includes appeals against negative decisions on asylum applications, Dublin transfer decisions or decisions reducing or withdrawing reception conditions.
According to the Minister of Justice and Public Order, the establishment of the IPAC will contribute to a more rapid examination of pending asylum appeals, against the backdrop of a rising backlog of cases before the Administrative Court. Currently, appeals against asylum decisions take approximately two years to be decided.
Another legislative reform published in July 2018, Law No 80(I) 2018, brings about an amendment to the Cypriot Refugee Law, which sets out a list of criteria for determining the existence of a “risk of absconding”, allowing for detention in a Dublin procedure. Such criteria include: non-compliance with a return decision; non-compliance with or obstruction of a Dublin transfer, or a reasonably verified intention of non-compliance; provision of false or misleading information; previous expulsion or return; false statements on the person’s address of usual residence; previous absconding; abandonment of a reception centre; unfounded statements in the course of the Dublin interview; deliberate destruction of identity or travel documents and failure to cooperate with the Cypriot authorities with a view to establishing identity or nationality.
*This article first appeared on the Asylum Information Database AIDA managed by ECRE.
Photo CC) Andreas Komodromos, February 2018
This article appeared in the ECRE Weekly Bulletin . You can subscribe to the Weekly Bulletin here.