Last year, 12,000 people asked for asylum in the Czech Republic. The chance of obtaining refugee status is negligible; in 2003, it was granted to only 208 applicants. As Delovaya Praga writes, it is futile for immigrants from Ukraine, Moldova, and Russia (including from Chechnya) to count on it.
It is necessary to have direct evidence that a person is really in mortal danger and within their own state they cannot hope for protection. Those who come from zones of military, religious, political conflicts or from countries with a totalitarian regime (for example, from Belarus) have more hope.
The rest, having received a refusal, file an appeal to the recently created Supreme Administrative Court, flooding it with petitions that account for 60% of all cases considered by the court. In the Prague Administrative Court - 80%! Earlier, a repeated refusal, which was practically guaranteed, was given by the Interior Ministry without much delay. While the court case was pending, the unsuccessful refugee received the right to work and lived for a year or two in the Czech Republic, periodically checking in with the police.
After the establishment of the Administrative Court, the Interior Ministry no longer considers appeals. "Our administrative judiciary protects the rights of foreigners better than those of Czech citizens," said Josef Baxa, chairman of the Supreme Administrative Court. "Moreover, it is not refugees, who in accordance with the Geneva Convention actually require this, but economic immigrants." He confirmed to a correspondent of the newspaper "Hospodářské noviny" that the Administrative Court almost always upholds the decision of the Interior Ministry, which issued a refusal to grant refugee status. Only last year, 8,000 appeals were filed with the court.
Some people propose creating so-called "tribunals" to speed up the consideration of immigrants' complaints about denial of asylum. Such a trio - a judge, a representative of a non-governmental organization, and a social worker - would quickly consider complaints (read: refuse them). "I assume that some special courts should be created for this," believes Pavla Hradečná, a representative of the Czech branch of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
Tomáš Hajšman, head of the Interior Ministry's department for immigrants and refugees, disagrees with the idea of creating "tribunals." "These matters are the competence of an independent court," he stated. Nevertheless, in the near future the Interior Ministry does not intend to prepare amendments to the current law on refugees that could help the Administrative Court.