Revoking Syrian residency permits: The Refugee Council overturns 71% decisions by the Immigration Department to revoke residency permits.

The Danish government continues to face difficulties in returning Syrian refugees to Damascus and the surrounding areas. It appears that the “Damascus Project” – which aims to get as many Syrians as possible to leave Denmark because conditions in Damascus and the surrounding area have improved – has hit a new snag on the road to the Syrian capital. Despite the Danish Immigration Service withdrawing or refusing to extend residence permits for hundreds of Syrians who have temporary protection, the referral rate at the Refugee Council – which acts as an appeals body – is increasing.

In the first five months of this year, the Refugee Council reinstated residency permits for Syrian refugees in 71% cases where the Danish Immigration Service had withdrawn or refused to extend the permit.

For example, dealing with Osama's (53 years old) case in the Danish Immigration Service and then in the Refugee Council meant long months of uncertainty and fear for the future for him.

Back in June 2021, then-Minister for Immigration and Integration Mattias Tesfaye announced on the government website that the Danish Immigration Service would “quickly review” the “pile of cases relating to refugees from Damascus to investigate who no longer needs protection in Denmark.” For refugees like Munira (67) or Osama (53), this meant months of uncertainty and fear for the future while they waited for their cases to be processed by the Danish Immigration Service and then the Refugee Council.

Of the 76 personal cases processed, the Council overturned the Immigration Service's decision in 54 during the first five months of the year. It reinstated residence permits in 31 cases involving women and 23 involving men, upheld the Immigration Service's decision in 16 cases, and referred six cases back for reconsideration.

Considering the interrelationship between confirming or overturning decisions, the difference becomes even clearer. From June 2019 to April 2022, the Council overturned 161 decisions and confirmed 121 decisions, while in the first five months of 2022 the figures changed drastically. From January to May, the Refugee Council overturned 54 decisions from the Immigration Service and confirmed only 16 decisions, which is slightly more than three overturns for every decision to withdraw or refuse to extend residence permits.

At the Refugee Council, Asylum Director Eva Singer called on the Danish Immigration Service to apply the precautionary principle to a large extent in handling the case: “The situation in Syria is extremely arbitrary when it comes to ordinary Syrians who were abroad, not only those who fled military service but also ordinary people returning home. It is difficult to say for sure who is in the at-risk group and who is not, and that is why the precautionary principle is so important when the Danish Immigration Service deals with the case.”.

Eva Singer points out that it is generally difficult to verify what leads to a change in the picture and what might be new information that the Danish Immigration Service was not aware of, adding: “It would require seeing the decisions of the Danish Immigration Service, and we do not see them.”.

Strong recommendation
The increase in the rate of decisions overturned in the first five months of this year represents a significant rise compared to December 2021, when the Refugee Council overturned the Danish Immigration Service's decision in only 431 cases. In this context, the head of the Refugee Council, Judge Ebbe Honsgaard Trabjerg, described the Danish Immigration Service's decision overturning rate as "high" in an interview with the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The Danish Immigration Service is primarily obligated to follow the Refugee Council's decisions, and the Council head described the overturning rate of 711 cases as "very high." He added in a written statement that the Refugee Council is monitoring developments "very closely.".

Therefore, Eb Honsgaard Trabjerg has a clear expectation that the Danish Immigration Service will evaluate the decisions of the Refugee Council, as the 71% decision annulment rate is very high in the long term, and this affects people who face the cancellation or refusal of their residence permit, which would create a state of fear and uncertainty about their status.

In a written response, Henrik Thomasen, Deputy Director of the Danish Immigration Service, stated that “the Immigration Service closely monitors the practices of the Refugee Council, and the Immigration Service remains constantly informed of new key information and new rulings issued by the Human Rights Court to the extent that preliminary guidelines can be inferred. Hence, we adapt our practice accordingly.”.

He points out that, given the time lag of approximately half a year between the handling of the case by the Department and the handling by the Council, new information may have come to light. This is confirmed by Eb Honsgaard Trabjerg, as a manual review by the Refugee Council of cases in which the Immigration Department’s decisions were overturned in 2022 shows that in more than half of the cases there was new information that was not available at the time the case was handled by the Danish Immigration Department.

Henrik Thomasen also points to the fact that the Refugee Council has consistently established a clear practice after the Immigration Service has dealt with the first cases.

A stricter precautionary principle
The Refugee Council's Coordinating Committee, which lays the groundwork for other councils, has repeatedly stressed the need for a precautionary principle in Syrian cases. Eb Honsgaard Trabjerg suggests that the various councils may have “sharpened the application of the precautionary principle in cases involving persons from Syria in light of ongoing and additional background information about Syria.”.

Eva Singer, director of asylum at the Danish Refugee Council, is convinced that the head of the Refugee Council has used the precautionary principle more strictly.

Regarding new information, which, after the Council reviewed more than half of the resolutions, might include, for example, media coverage or activities critical of the Syrian regime that only came to light while the Council was addressing the issue, according to Eb Honsgaard Trabjerg: “There may also be new information about the foreigner’s relationship with Denmark.”.

The chairman’s reference to media coverage as potential new information that could lead to a change in the decision is not unusual, as one example was: “As documented by the complainant, he was exposed in a Danish national newspaper, a major British newspaper, and in a live television broadcast on a Syrian opposition channel, in addition to videos on social media, one of which had at least 120,000 views. This case is an example of why the Immigration Department’s decision to withdraw or refuse to extend a residence permit should be overturned.”.

Based on the precautionary principle that applies to the assessment of asylum seekers from Syria, the Refugee Council believes that the complainant, upon returning to Syria, raised this point to such an extent that he may be subjected to questioning and, in this regard, ill-treatment by the Syrian authorities.

A quick count on the Council’s website on practice in Syrian cases shows that media coverage played a role in only seven family cases in 2022. The Refugee Council Secretariat stated that media coverage in the first five months of the year played a role in decisions for a total of 23 people, but there are also examples of media coverage that did not change the decisions of the Danish Immigration Service.

(Source: information.dk website)