Brussels, 23/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - Several non-governmental organisations think that the Europe of human rights has been dealt a severe blow with the adoption on Wednesday 18 June by the European Parliament of the controversial “returns” directive - a text which among other things envisages a maximum detention period for illegal immigrants of 6 months, extendable to 18 months, and readmission bans of up to five years for those expelled (EUROPE 9685).
In the view of Amnesty International (AI), the “excessive” detention period and banishment from EU territory risk “lowering existing standards in the member states and sets an extremely bad example to other regions in the world”. AI thinks that the added value of this directive is “hard to see” and even that the text risks promoting prolonged detention practices in the member states. In France, the directive “will change nothing”, French Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux has indicated. However, Spain has said that it plans to increase the legal detention period to 60 days from the current level of 40 days. Italy, which has already begun to toughen up its immigration policy, has anticipated the directive by raising the level to the maximum permitted by the text. “In adopting this text, the European legislator gives us to understand that migrants are not human beings like any other, with rights and towards whom states have obligations. They are stripped of their humanity”, said Souhayr Belhassen, the president of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH).
Similarly, Bjarte Vandvik, the secretary general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), was “extremely disappointed” that the fundamental rights of people expelled from the EU would not be fully guaranteed by this new legislative instrument. ECRE also regrets the fact that people intercepted illegally crossing a border will be excluded from the scope of the directive, as asylum seekers already have little recourse to legal channels to entering the EU. Furthermore, ECRE thinks that the Council has “made a mockery” of the European Parliament's new codecision powers on asylum and immigrations matters, which now risks becoming a mere assent procedure. Consequently, Mr Vandvik urges MEPs to “seriously re-evaluate” their role in this area, given that it is up to the European Parliament to help build a people's Europe by ensuring a balance between states' interests and fundamental rights.
The organisation Save the Children welcomes the directive's obligation for the member states to take account of the best interests of children. Nonetheless, it regrets the fact that the text provides only limited guidelines on essential safeguards, particularly with regard to the expulsion of unaccompanied children. Given their status, many of them will not benefit from any safeguards at all, the organisation says, for example minors who enter the EU illegally via human trafficking. Even where the directive applies to an unaccompanied child, no procedures (risk assessment, legal representation) are laid down to establish their best interests before return to a third country. They may be expelled to a country which is not their country of origin and where they may not have any family, only “adequate reception facilities” (the directive does not define this term either). Save The Children therefore calls on the member states to implement this directive in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and calls on the Commission to monitor vigorously the national implementing measures. It also urges the Parliament and Council to commit to revising and improving the directive following the Commission's review, probably in 2013. In France, Cimade announced that it was investigating all available means of contesting the legislation.
Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, also denounced the text adopted by the Parliament. She deplored the “difficulty in advancing the fundamental principles of the protection of individuals' rights who are in a very vulnerable situation”. She regretted the resistance in public opinion to the idea that illegal immigrants still have rights, which are recognised even for those in detention who have been convicted of crimes. Ms Arbour also cited the right to protection against arbitrary treatment, including arbitrary detention and prolonged detention without judicial supervision. She attributed this attitude to the Western preference for civil and political rights which has enabled specific protection to be granted to refugees under threat for political or religious reasons. It is time we gave equivalent protection to those who are persecuted for political reasons and those whose lives are threatened by extreme poverty, famine, disease and epidemics from which they also have the right to attempt to escape, she said. (B.C./transl.fl)