Evidentiary assessment in refugee status determination and the EU qualification directive

Författare

Gregor Noll

Summary, in English

Evidentiary assessment in asylum procedures is an area largely unregulated by international law. While the EU Qualification Directive does not purport to fill this lacuna, its Article 4 offers a norm that does touch on a number of central aspects of evidentiary assessment. This article provides a detailed analysis of this complex provision and its practical implications. Amongst others, the Directive obliges Member States to communicate any information that impacts on the relevance of the applicant's statements.

The processing of information and evidence is divided into three distinct stages. The first deals with the submission of information, the second seeks to establish the relevance of the information provided by the applicant and to assess it, while the third concerns evidentiary assessment in the narrow sense, considering the value of evidence and basing the decision on it. Implicitly, the Directive imposes a duty on the authorities to identify the applicant's claim, and concurrently, the themes of proof flowing from it. This might very well exceed present practice in Member States, and would thus translate into an improvement for the rule of law at large.

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