Asylum seekers and false documents

In many countries it is understandably, and rightly so, a criminal offence for anyone to enter with false documents. Nonetheless, asylum seekers who are fleeing for their lives and have no other way of travelling to safety have a defence under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Article 31 (1) of the Refugee Convention states as follows on refugees unlawfully in the country of refuge: “The contracting states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorisation, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.”

In my view, this means that the convention requires that refugees shall not be penalised solely by reason of unlawful entry or because, being in need of refuge and protection, they remain illegally in a country. Moreover, refugees are not required to have come directly from territories where their life or freedom was threatened.

Article 31(1) is also considered as having been intended to apply, and has been interpreted to apply, to persons who have briefly transited other countries or who are unable to find effective protection in the first country or countries to which they flee. The drafters only intended that immunity from penalty should not apply to refugees who found asylum, or who were settled, temporarily or permanently, in another country. The mere fact of UNHCR being operational in a certain country should not be used as a decisive argument for the availability of effective protection in that country.

Of course, one would need to examine such instances very carefully on a case-by-case basis and according to their individual and proper merits.

Charles Buttigieg, former Commissioner for Refugees – Tarxien

Legalised cannabis

Cannabis, or marijuana, is a drug that is smoked or consumed as a psychoactive (mind-altering) drug. Our country will take pride, when eventually the law being proposed is approved by a majority in our House of Representatives, that we are avant-garde, not in art, music or literature but in drug use.

What a pity! We will be introducing a new habit after decades of trying to eliminate the use of tobacco.

Acquiring pure “hashish” from lawful outlets and growing such plants in one’s own abode is tantamount to blessing a curse. Would all illegal activities concerning its distribution come to a halt? Not even the sale of illicit uncustomed cigarettes or, for that matter, prostitution have ever come to a halt.

Competing with drug traffickers with regard to price and quality is an undertaking that is never likely to succeed.

Please, do not introduce a new vicious habit, especially to our bright young men and women. They can do well without the use of cannabis.

Anthony Saliba – St Paul’s Bay

Driving wrong way

Will the authorities kindly note with urgency, before a bad accident occurs and the people concerned will have to suffer the consequences, that many bike and scooter drivers are driving into the streets of Sliema wrong way, as though they have the right to do so?

Maybe some are not  aware of the many ‘one-way’ streets there are and they cannot go in the wrong way.

So the driver, heading the right way, now has to worry and be very  aware of the drivers on bikes  etc. coming towards them the wrong way.

Anna Chetcuti – Sliema

Shelter needed

Through this newspaper, I would like to ask the relevant authority to instal a bus shelter at the beginning of Triq Bormla, Żabbar (opposite the government housing estate) going to Żejtun as it is an open space and there is nowhere to shelter from the elements.

Lawrence Schembri – Żabbar

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