Review article
The Right to Asylum in Case Law – Do Croatian ourts Promote Higher Standards of Protection of Asylees and Asylum Seekers
Goranka Lalić Novak
orcid.org/0000-0001-5984-9779
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb
Abstract
The right to asylum is guaranteed by international, regional, and national regulations. Courts, as a corrective of decisions and actions of administrative bodies, have an important role in the development of protection of asylum seekers and asylees. The paper aims at determining whether Croatian courts promote international and European standards of asylum protection and whether they strive
to develop higher standards of protection of asylees and asylum seekers. The legal problem this paper deals with is the level of regulation of the Croatian law of asylum from the aspect of the Croatian constitutional law, which includes administrative and judicial discretional decisions, i.e. the interpretation of legal provisions regulating the law of asylum. From the legal-scientific perspective,
the problem is the unsatisfactory knowledge legal science has about the abovementioned issues. The paper is based on the hypothesis that Croatian courts do not have a significant influence on the development of standards of protection of asylees and asylum seekers. It analyses Croatian legislation, specifically case law of the Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia and that of the constitutional Court. The analysis has been done by using the legal-dogmatic method for researching and interpreting legal regulations and other legal sources, and by the method of linguistic analysis. It is concluded that Croatian courts have so far had a rather limited influence on the improvement of standards of protection of asylees and asylum seekers. The judiciary could have a more important
role in the development of the Croatian asylum system provided that courts use the influence they obtain from their independent position and develop higher standards of protection of asylees and asylum seekers.
Keywords
asylum; right to asylum; Croatia; case law
Hrčak ID:
134712
URI
Publication date:
3.12.2014.
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