In focus > News 11/23/2018

Members of the Asylum Commission acquainted with the application of the Law on General Administrative Procedure on the Asylum Granting Procedure

A workshop entitled „The Application of the Law on General Administrative Procedure on the Asylum Granting Procedure“ was held for members of the Asylum Commission in Hotel „Envoy“ in Belgrade on October 31st, 2018, within the second stage of the project „Support to Strengthening Migration and Asylum Management in Republic of Serbia,“ carried out by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) with the support of the British Embassy in Belgrade.

 

The workshop was attended by five representatives of the Asylum Commission - Stana Asanin, the President of the Asylum Commission and the Head of the Department for Implementing Readmission Agreements of the Ministry of the Interior of Republic of Serbia, Prof. Ivana Krstic, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade, Sanja Gavranovic, the manager of the Group for Administrative and Administrative-Supervisory Affairs of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs of Republic of Serbia, Olivera Nikolic, the manager of the Group for Property-Related and Legal Affairs of the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration, and Ljiljana Mandic, a representative of the Border Police Directorate.     

 

The members of the workshop were welcomed by Tanja Azanjac Janjatovic, the programme coordinator of the Capacity Building Programme of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Vuk Cucic senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law of University of Belgrade, the workshop trainer, and Stana Asanin, the President of the Asylum Commission.

 

 

„Within the second stage of the project, the focus is on supporting harmonization of national practice of institutions and stakeholders active within the asylum procedure. We have taken into account that all instances – the Asylum Office, the Asylum Commission, as well as the Administrative Court – should devise the best way to implement the new laws and the way to advance the existing practice. This year, with the support of the Aire Centre, we have organized a national consultative process in order to create a space for discussion and analysis of what the new laws are bringing and the way they affect the practice. Particular attention has been paid to identifying challenges and defining recommendations aimed at advancing the practice,“ Tanja Azanjac Janjatovic explained.   

 

In the first part of the workshop, Vuk Cucic, senior lecturer, acquainted the participants with new elements in the Law on General Administrative Procedure, which are important for asylum granting procedure, while in the second part of the workshop, discussion was held about concrete legal solutions affecting the work of the Asylum Commission. Moreover, problems encountered by employees of the Asylum Office were also discussed. Among other things, the procedure in cases of decisions to reject the asylum request and to refuse the asylum request, the decisions of the first-instance and the second-instance bodies and the sequence in the procedure of making an appeal were discussed... The topics addressed by the workshop also included the decisions that involve obligatory application of the concept of the safe third country, infringements of the rules of procedure, binding and non-binding decisions by the second-instance bodies...

 

Vuk Cucic, senior lecturer, also talked about alignment of the Law on General Administrative Procedure with specific laws, the time span of validity of regulations, some of the most important principles of the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection – the principle of assistance to the party, the principle of predictability and the principle of commensurability – as well as the issue of informal electronic supply of information and informal electronic communication.

 

In the opinion of participants, the workshop has enabled them to significantly improve their knowledge, especially in the field of application of new provisions of the Law on General Administrative Procedure on implementation of the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protection. The discussions about provisions of the Law on Administrative Procedure and about concrete cases encountered by employees of the Asylum Commission have both received positive assessments.