Convention refugee
Convention refugees are people who have been granted the legal status of refugees on the basis of the Geneva Refugee Convention (GRC).
According to Art. 1 GFK (actually the Agreement on the Status of Refugees of July 28, 1951 , in conjunction with Art. 1 Protocol), a “refugee” is a person who “out of a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race , religion , nationality , Belonging to a certain social group or because of her political convictions, is outside the country of which she is or would be a national and cannot or does not want to use the protection of that country because of these fears [] ”.
The status and thus the interpretation of the GRC is granted by the respective national asylum procedure including its judicial review, in some countries also by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
In contrast, war refugees are not treated within the meaning of Article 1 of the 1951 CSF.
In Germany
In Germany, the term convention refugee is used to distinguish them as beneficiaries of the “small asylum” (granting of refugee status according to Section 3 (1) AsylG ) from those of the constitutional “large asylum” (right to asylum according to Art. 16a GG ). The elements of the offense in Section 3 (1) AsylG correspond to those of the Geneva Refugee Convention, while the right to asylum according to Art. 16a GG (“large asylum”) can be waived if the asylum seeker entered via a safe third country . The recognition as a foreign refugee takes place in the context of an asylum procedure at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees .
In Austria
The refugee definition of the Geneva Refugee Convention is implemented in Austrian law by § 3 Asylum Act 2005 (previously the comparatively similar wording according to § 7 Asylum Act 1997). The procedure takes place before the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum , an authority subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, and the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) (since 2014).
In Switzerland
The Swiss Asylum Act contains in Art. 3 the definition of Art. 1 GFK that applies to Switzerland. The Federal Office for Migration is responsible for the asylum procedure . The restriction (by the asylum law revision in 2006) for asylum seekers who cannot produce valid papers within 48 hours raised serious concerns at the UNHCR about compliance with the GRC.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Asylum Act 2005 www.ris.bka.gv.at
- ↑ UNHCR raises concerns about proposed revisions of Swiss asylum law unhcr.org, July 27, 2004
- ↑ UN condemns tightened asylum law swissinfo.ch September 5, 2006