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The Minister of Justice Beat Jans wants to make certain asylum decisions within 24 hours in the future. This is even well received by the left – under one condition.
Beat Jans’ asylum plans sound like a small revolution: Asylum seekers from countries of origin with an asylum granting rate of less than one percent should receive a decision within 24 hours. For example, people from Morocco, Tunisia or Algeria are affected. In the process, the pace has “maximum priority,” said Jans at the media conference on Tuesday. He wants to expand this procedure, which has been tested in Zurich since mid-November, to all federal asylum centers by the end of April.
“The project in Zurich got off to a very good start,” says Magdalena Rast, spokeswoman for the State Secretariat for Migration SEM. «The numbers speak for themselves. In the federal asylum center in Zurich, the number of asylum seekers from the Maghreb countries has decreased by over 40 percent, while it has stagnated in the other federal asylum centers.
Backing from left to right
Jans also receives support for his plans from politicians. From left to right everyone agrees: faster procedures make sense. “The 24-hour procedure is fundamentally to be welcomed. I’m glad that Mr. Jans is now tightening the screw,” says Aargau SVP National Councilor Andreas Glarner. And yet he is only cautiously optimistic: “We will then see whether actions follow the words.”
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Federal Councilor Beat Jans meets with asylum seekers at the Federal Asylum Center in Basel.
KEYSTONE/Anthony Anex
The former SP parliamentary group leader Roger Nordmann also supports his Federal Council: “The plan is right. The length of a procedure does not make the situation any better,” says Nordmann. “This procedure makes sense especially for simple and obvious cases.” However, one must ensure that it is cleaned up and that asylum seekers have access to a lawyer at all times.
Basel Green Party politician Sibel Arslan echoes the same sentiment: “The fact that faster procedures are now being introduced is not bad per se. But it is important that those who are in need of protection also receive this protection.”
Does the care suffer from the pace?
Despite good feedback from politicians, there is also criticism of the system. Miriam Behrens, director of the Swiss Refugee Aid, is skeptical about the new procedure: “The accelerated procedure is already very tightly scheduled. I fear that the facts cannot be clarified carefully in this short time.”
She is also critical of the success in Zurich: “The purpose of the asylum procedure is not to deter as many people as possible. The goal is to identify those in need of protection and this process must also achieve that.” Magdalena Rast from SEM cannot understand this concern. «All important steps are carried out in the same way as in a normal procedure. The process is treated with the same care, but is timed more closely.”
The pilot test runs until the end of the month
The pilot test in Zurich will run until the end of the month. Refugee Aid is bothered by the fact that plans are being made to expand the practice to other federal asylum centers before it ends. “We would like an evaluation of the pilot test and would like to find out whether the quality of the decisions has changed and whether vulnerable people could be sufficiently identified at this speed,” says Behrens. For the SEM it is clear: “We have a good overview of the data situation and the competence to assess this data.”