Brno, Jan 18 (CTK) – The Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) has ruled that the Prague Municipal Court must deal again with the case of a Kurdish woman from Iraq whom the immigration police denied access to the Czech Republic in December 2016.
She flew into Prague along with her family legally, with a tourist visa. However, the police declared that it was invalid because she did not present any confirmation of their accommodation and sufficient sum of money.
Afterwards the woman, who was to be forced into being flown back to Istanbul, tore down her documents at a toilet and asked for asylum.
The immigration police command said the request for international protection had come too late, due to which the woman faced the expulsion procedure.
However, the NSS pointed out specific circumstances of the case that must be now examined by the Prague court.
Under the law, foreigners must ask for international protection without any delay. However, this does not necessarily mean that they must do so immediately upon their arrival in the Czech Republic.
There is no general time limit and what matters is the situation, the NSS ruled.
“Given the specific circumstances of the current case, the NSS rules that asking for international protection on the day of the arrival to the Czech Republic, just a few hours after the visa was made invalid, can also be considered addressing the authorities without a delay,” the NSS said.
It said the woman had not been prepared for the denial of the entry to the Czech Republic at all. She had the visa for one month and only wanted to ask for asylum in the immigration centre later.
The court said the language and cultural barriers of the woman, who is an ethnic Kurd of Yazidi religion, had to be taken into consideration.
She is illiterate and only speaks Kurdish. She had no interpreter when the decision on denying her entry to the Czech Republic was made.
“She could not read the information cited in the decision on the denial of her entry. She only received the relevant form in Czech,” the NSS said.
The Organisation for the Help to Refugees (OPU) says the police constantly ignore international obligations at the airport. In a non-transparent procedure without an interpreter, they refuse to accept requests for international protection from refugees.
“The scenes at the airport are absolutely undignified. The people must destroy their documents or damage their own health themselves to make their application by the police registered,” OPU Martin Rozumek said.
He said the easy solution would be an independent supervision of the police behaviour either by the ombudsman, some NGO or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
