Friday, January 13, 2017

Prime Minister's statements on migration 'worrying'

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat speaking on Wednesday. Photo: Steve Zammit Lupi

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's recent comments on migration have been branded "nonsensical" by migration experts, who fear the statements point in a direction incompatible with international law. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday at the start of Malta's EU Council presidency, Dr Muscat said: "People who have the right to asylum should be allowed in and get processed. Those who don't, shouldn't. Right now that certainty does not exist." Neil Falzon, a human rights lawyer and director of Aditus Foundation, said the Prime Minister's apparent suggestion that only refugees would be allowed to enter Europe was a "worrying statement" which ignored the fact that access to asylum was a universally protected human right. "With this statement the Prime Minister is forgetting that refugee status needs to be determined by a State on the basis of procedures assessing a person's claim," Dr Falzon told the Times of Malta yesterday. "These procedures should be fair, effective and efficient so as to ensure no refugee is returned to a country where his life or safety is at risk. "The Prime Minister cannot possibly be suggesting that the EU selfishly shifts these procedures onto third...

from timesofmalta.com http://ift.tt/2iQeWyQ
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