Government 'moving the goalposts' on refugees, lawyer says

A group of nine men, some of whom have been waiting for 12 years for a decision on their application for refugee status, have filed judicial proceedings against their possible deportation, arguing that they now have a legitimate expectation to be allowed to stay in Malta.

In a judicial protest filed against the Commissioner for Refugees, the Ministry for Internal Affairs and National Security and the Attorney General by lawyers David Camilleri and Joseph Gatt last week, the Sudanese men explain that they had been through various procedures with refugee commissioners, ministries and authorities and in order to be allowed to stay and had made no progress at all.  

The reason for the delay is the absence of official documentation such as passports, which are impossible to obtain from their country of origin, lawyer Joseph Gatt said. Last January, they were told they had till the end of October to provide the authorities with their documentation, or face deportation.

Gatt said the government is moving the goalposts to find an excuse to kick them out of the country. "They know full well that this document is impossible to obtain. There is zero communication with those countries. You cannot ask me to get something impossible or else you'll throw me out."

The protest highlights a number of systemic deficiencies, including the lack of interpreters for non Arabic-speaking tribes, which meant that the men had to resort to using Arabic, in turn leading to the impression that they are Arabs. 

The new Commissioner for Refugees has adopted the practice of only sending correspondence to the applicants' lawyer and not the applicants themselves, the protest claimed. The upshot of this was that if a decision is refused, the 20-day period to file an appeal - which starts running from the date of notification of either the applicant or his lawyer - could lapse before the applicant even becomes aware of the refusal.

The men had been in Malta for so long, under temporary humanitarian protection that had been renewed more than once, that they had acquired "a legitimate expectation of an acquired right," under EU law, the lawyers said.

As an interim measure, the men are also asking the courts to prevent them from being deported pending the outcome of proceedings.