Finland approves controversial deportation law
19 July 2024
Finland's right-wing parliament approved a new controversial and potentially illegal deportation law last week. In essence, the aim of the emergency bill is to counteract Russia's "instrumentalised migration", which funnelled more than a thousand migrants across the 1,340-kilometre land border with Russia in 2023.
The bill would allow border guards to turn asylum seekers away or remove them from the country. Unless the guards believe them to be underage, disabled, or otherwise exceptionally vulnerable, border guards can use the new law to remove people from the country – they can physically carry them over the border back into Russia. The bill also takes away asylum-seekers' right to appeal against border guards' decisions.
Given that the bill is an emergency measure, it is valid for a year and will not be applied immediately. Rather, both the president and parliament have to agree that an emergency threshold is met beforehand.
 | Niina Leppilahti The bill has garnered widespread disapproval. The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty, has noted that the law "raises a number of significant human rights concerns" and urged parliament not to adopt it. While the far-right interior minister celebrated the law as a demonstration of Finland's right to decide about its borders, legal experts doubt that it can be applied. That's because it contradicts the Finnish constitution, international law, and EU law, as pushback policies violate the principle of non-refoulement. This principle prohibits countries from deporting ('refoulement') any person to any country in which their lives are endangered because of their race, religion, nationality, or political opinion. The threat of a "migrant influx" can only be instrumentalised by leaders like Putin due to EU countries' general hostility towards migrants and that disregarding the rule of law also plays directly into autocrats' hands. |
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