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IMMIGRATION

Migration Board to blacklist ineffectual asylum lawyers

The Migration Board (Migrationsverket) has begun blacklisting attorneys the agency deems unfit for handling the cases of asylum seekers in Sweden.

Migration Board to blacklist ineffectual asylum lawyers

The agency has received a great deal of criticism regarding shortcomings in legal support available for asylum seekers, including complaints that attorneys representing asylum seekers can’t always carry out their responsibilities.

“We are aware of the fact that there are problems, but we hope our new procedures will help increase legal protections for asylum seekers,” said Migration Board general counsel Mikael Ribbenvik to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

On Wednesday, the agency plans to introduce a new set of procedures, including the establishment of a contact list of attorneys and legal representatives which are judged to be competent to handle asylum cases.

In addition, the Migration Board has created a list of lawyers who do not pass muster with the agency and who won’t be offered any cases in the future.

Currently, the Migration Board has a database of around 1,000 approved lawyers, while a total of eight attorneys have been blacklisted.

Failings by attorneys representing asylum seekers not only hurt clients’ chances of gaining asylum, but also has a negative impact on staff at the Migration Board who are often forced to fill in gaps and rework parts of investigations to ensure asylum seekers receive all the legal guarantees to which they are entitled.

“It will also be better for us because we are dependent on the investigations that legal representatives are appointed to carry out. Inadequate representatives perform shabby investigations, which leads to more work for us,” said Ribbenvik.

The new procedures were developed in coordination with the Swedish Bar Association (Advokatsamfundet), the Swedish courts, the Swedish Refugee Advice Centre (Rådgivningsbyrån för asylsökande), and Swedish Refugee Aid.

Last year the Migration Board arranged lawyers for a total of 30,000 asylum cases.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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