Decisions by international juridical instances and pending cases feature prominently in the July issue.
At the European Court of Justice, the Netherlands is criticised for not making a distinction among foreign delinquents, making EU nationals convicted of offences liable to expulsion under the same conditions as third-country nationals.
At the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), extensive coverage is given to two rulings which found that Bulgaria had, in application of its very severe Aliens Act, violated the Convention on several counts relating to the right of family reunion, protection against arbitrary detention and the availability of an effective remedy.
The ECHR has also been requested to rule on a case of refusal to issue a work permit to the benefit of a Moroccan in the Netherlands wanting to be an imam. The European judges will have to decide whether this is a labour market issue or an infringement of the right to freedom of religion.
Moreover, a Sikh Association in France has applied to the ECHR because one of its members has been denied a driving license on the grounds that the photograph submitted shows him wearing a turban. Sikh children in France are already banned from wearing a turban in public schools in France.
The UN's Committee against Torture (CAT) has handed down negative views on communications against three European countries:
- Norway, for expelling a rejected Pakistani asylum-seeker in spite of a request for interim measures;
- Sweden for wanting to expel a Rwandan Hutu woman who had been repeatedly raped and risks further maltreatment in her home country;
- Switzerland for wanting to expel a Balurusian woman, a victim of repetitive rape, and, in another case, for wanting to expel a rejected Libyan asylum-seeker, a former member of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
Articles on legislative Bills or legislative proposals include:
- The new Aliens Bill in France dealing essentially with family reunion and asylum-seekers.
- The new Aliens Bill in Germany, dealing essentially with family formation, integration and a right of residence for long-stay asylum-seekers.
- The proposed tougher integration test in the Netherlands for newcomers.
- The proposal in Norway to use an income criterion instead of an age criterion to determine whether to grant family reunion.
- Parliamentary approval of the proposal enabling rejected asylum-seekers who sought protection in the Netherlands before 1st April 2001 to apply for a residence permit.
The section on irregular migrants is mostly devoted to the problems faced by Malta, Italy and Spain. Issues brought up here include:
- the humanitarian obligation of States or vessels at sea to rescue people in distress, regardless of whether they are irregular migrants/asylum-seekers and even if they are within the territorial waters of a country refusing to assist, namely Libya;
- the EU's ability to respond and provide assistance to the Member States affected, in particular the role of its external border agency, FRONTEX;
- Malta's proposal to share out the "burden" among Member States.
Other news items in this section deal with, amongst other countries, Belgium (migrant trafficking), France (expulsion quota and presence of 350,000 irregular Algerian migrants), Germany (attendance at school of children of unlawfully residing foreigners), Italy (new reception centre in Lampedusa).
Items on protection issues include:
- the ongoing debate in Denmark on offering protection to Iraqi interpreters at the service of the Danish contingent in Iraq;
- hurdles encountered by long-stay asylum-seekers in Germany wanting to fulfil the conditions to obtain a right of residence;
- trial in Italy of those who allegedly took part in the abduction and forced repatriation of a Convention refugee of Egyptian origin;
- frustration of refugees in Morocco;
- deteriorating housing conditions in two Swedish municipalities on account of the influx of refugees;
- Switzerland's decision to stop paying return financial assistance to rejected Romanian asylum-seekers;
- UK's refusal so far to grant re-entry to a Convention refugee who was abducted and sent to the Guantanamo detention centre.
In the section on racism, extensive coverage is given to the televised video of two Albanian migrants being beaten, humiliated and insulted by a Greek policeman while his colleagues look on. Also included here are items concerning:
- Germany: acquittal of the two men accused of brutally beating a German of Ethiopian origin just before last year's World Cup event;
- Norway: continual protests against acquittal of policemen for the death of a Norwegian of Nigerian origin who died in the course of being arrested;
- Malta: black people unwanted on board some public buses;
- Netherlands: MP of Moroccan origin denied entry into discotheques;
- Ukraine: murder of an Iraqi asylum-seeker.
A large part of the section on miscellaneous items is devoted to the second report of the Council of Europe's rapporteur Dick Marty, who has been investigating abductions, "extraordinary renditions" and detention centres in some Member States.
A number of other items deal with the wearing of a Muslim headscarf or niqab, as well as one on the follow-up to the controversial decision of the so-called Koran judge in Germany.
Moreover, there is information on the two events in the UK that have attracted international attention, one dealing with the continued discriminatory treatment of Ghurka members of the British Armed Forces and the other on the so-called honour killing of a young woman of Kurdish origin in spite of four attempts to warn the police that family members were determined to murder her.
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