Although children’s rights are constitutionally secured in Austria, respect for the best interests of the child would suffer if they were implemented, says the head of the new Child Welfare Commission.
What about children’s rights when it comes to decisions on the right to asylum and residence? The “Child Welfare Commission” located in the Ministry of Justice is to investigate this question. The commission was set up at the beginning of February by Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens), who at that time had temporarily represented the Minister of Justice. The reason for the commission was the deportation of three underage girls to Georgia and Armenia, which led to indignation among the opposition and the population and subsequently to disagreements in the coalition.
Before the summer, the Child Welfare Commission wants to present recommendations in a report on how child welfare and children’s rights could be given greater consideration in asylum and aliens law proceedings. Because these would “actually no longer play a role”, says the chairman of the commission, the former President of the Supreme Court Irmgard Griss in yesterday’s “ZiB 2”. There should be binding monitoring of children’s rights, suggested the former Neos MP in her first interim assessment.
“Children play a supporting role”
By this, Griss means a body that continuously monitors the importance of children’s rights and the best interests of the child in enforcement but also in legislation. Namely not a big one, as she emphasizes. “In the constitution, children’s rights are guaranteed,” says Griss, “but in current law, things are getting thinner and thinner. Little goes down below, with the children themselves. “
In the Asylum Act, children’s rights “really don’t play a role”, just as little as in enforcement, says Griss and gives an example. For example, parents would have to give reasons for fleeing and the like in an asylum procedure, but how this would affect the children is not examined separately – “they play a minor role”.
Mayors hear in the asylum procedure
Another appeal: listen to the mayor and neighbors – “especially when it comes to the so-called humanitarian right to stay”. Ultimately, the crucial question would be how well affected people are integrated in Austria. “And who knows better than people who live with them? In parishes, in parishes, where these families get involved? ”She ponders. This would be the “essential element of the facts” that would have to be taken into account.
A proposal that does not meet with much approval from Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). In the “press hour” on Sunday he said: “If we start to make individual decisions as the benchmark, then we will lose the objectivity of the procedure.” When asked about the Child Welfare Commission, he was ready to talk: “When the judiciary says there must be new criteria in the assessment and introduces a new legislative proposal, that’s a completely different matter.”
(bsch)
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