The latest addition to the EASO Professional Development Series (PDS), which constitutes unique reference materials developed by and for members of EU courts and tribunals competent in asylum matters, is a chapter dedicated to ‘Vulnerability in the context of applications for international protection’.
This chapter has been developed by EASO in close cooperation with the International Association of Refugee and Migration Judges (IARMJ). It comprises a Judicial Analysis, based on the CEAS legal instruments and their specific provisions pertaining to vulnerable applicants and relevant European and International human rights law. The analysis looks at the specific legal consequences that the identification of vulnerabilities has in the field of reception conditions and under Dublin III regulation. It goes on to examine what vulnerability of applicants entails in the field of evidence and credibility assessment and how it may affect the decision on qualification for international protection. It finishes with an analysis of the different special procedural guarantees foreseen for different categories of vulnerable applicants in the context of administrative and judicial proceedings in the field of international protection.
The Judicial Analysis is accompanied by a Compilation of Jurisprudence that lists relevant case law by national courts, the CJEU and ECtHR and a Judicial Trainers’ Guidance Note, which is intended to help judicial trainers who wish to deliver training on the issue of vulnerability.
Pending the publication of this new chapter, a pilot professional development workshop was held online on 28 and 29 January 2021, with the aim to test the newly developed content on 23 members of courts and tribunals from 11 EU Member States. During the sessions, led by two EASO Judicial Trainers from Ireland and Italy, issues such as age assessment and assessment of medical evidence in support of vulnerability claims and the impact of traumatic experiences in the assessment of applications were discussed along with the major sources of EU law regulating these issues. Participants also put their acquired knowledge in practise, discussing case studies included in the Judicial Trainers’ Guidance Note.
The Professional Development Series chapter on Vulnerability is available online. For a full overview of the chapters available in the series, feel free to browse through the EASO website where you will also see that selected Judicial Analyses on Qualification for international protection, 15c Qualification Directive and COI have recently become available in the Macedonian and Serbian languages.
Wishing you a pleasant reading!
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