According to the law, when an application is lodged by an unaccompanied child, the Public Prosecutor
must appoint a guardian for the child concerned in accordance with Article 19, paragraph 1 of
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Presidential Decree 220/2007. There is no specific time limit within which the guardian must be
appointed. The competent Prosecutor is designated as temporary legal guardian, and should then
propose a permanent guardian to be appointed by the Court. There are no specific requirements to act
as a guardian.
In practice, the system is truly dysfunctional as prosecutors and the court’s office do not have the
resources to handle the number of cases referred to them and because there is no institution or body in
place that prosecutors can refer to in order to appoint permanent guardians. In some cases, the
permanent guardianship is transferred to directors of the reception centres or state social workers. In a
report, UNHCR and Praksis note that it “seems that the procedures followed in order to ensure the
representation and protection of unaccompanied children depends on the discretion of the prosecutor
and on the supporting services that the prosecutor may have at his or her disposal (such as NGOs,
58
social services)”. The Greek Government itself admits that the guardianship system has not reached
yet a satisfying efficiency level.
The law requires that in every case, the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration when
implementing the provisions of this Article. In practice the Police informs the juvenile Prosecutor who
acts as guardian of the child. Little more than that is done and the guardian does not engage in any
action as guardian; in fact, the same Prosecutor usually formally acts as guardian for many children.
F. The safe country concepts
Indicators:
-
Does national legislation allow for the use of safe country of origin concept in the asylum
procedure?
Yes
No
Does national legislation allow for the use of safe third country concept in the asylum
procedure?
Yes
No
Does national legislation allow for the use of first country of asylum concept in the asylum
procedure?
Yes
No
Is there a list of safe countries of origin?
Yes
No
Is the safe country of origin concept used in practice?
Yes
No
Is the safe third country concept used in practice?
Yes
No
According to Article 20 Presidential Decree 114/10, a country shall be considered as a safe third country
for a specific applicant when all the following conditions are fulfilled:
a. the applicant's life and liberty are not threatened on account of race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group or political opinion;
b. the country respects the principle of non-refoulement in accordance with the 1951 Geneva
Refugee Convention;
c. the applicant is not at risk of suffering serious harm as described in Article 15 of Presidential
Decree 96/2008 on the entitlement of subsidiary protection (implementing Art 15 Council
Directive 2004/83/ECon minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country
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Article 12 Presidential Decree 114/10.
UNHCR et alii, opus cite.
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