should be done every six (6) or three (3) months by the police authorities, constitute one of the
major issues concerning the lack of access in the asylum procedure. A non renewal of the
asylum seekers‟ pink cards results to the issuance of a decision of interruption of the
application. The remedy against the above mentioned decision is systematically rejected by the
competent police authorities. The exact same problem emerges if an asylum seeker needs to
change his declared address or to correct his/her personal data, sometimes resulting the
inability to do so because of the almost impossible access to the competent police authorities.
The Greek police are still involved in the initial administrative authority functions as the
Law 3907/2011 has not yet been implemented. There has been an immense delay concerning
the examinations of the applications by the Greek police (at first instance). By trying to carry
out the backlog on one hand they examine the nationalities that they think as accelerated
procedure and on the other hand they delay the examination of other nationalities that fall into
the normal procedure. All these happen by no clear justification of their qualification or
disqualification criteria dividing the asylum seekers to accelerated or normal procedure.
Asylum seekers and potential asylum seekers are not provided with sufficient
information on procedures and their rights. The information leaflet is neither properly
distributed nor updated. Most of the times, there is not sufficient interpretation possibilities
available throughout the procedure.
There are no special measures in place for those who request asylum in detention. The
detainees are not informed by the authorities on their right to apply for asylum. Yet if an
application is lodged, there is no prior notification of the detainees concerning the date of their
examination of their application. It has been reported to Greek Council for Refugees that
sometimes the authorities ask the detainees to undersign a document declaring that they do not
wish to apply for asylum, without clarifying the content of the above mentioned document.
This happens even in cases when the detainees have previously declared to Greek Council for
Refugees that they wish to lodge an application.
On 24 May 2012 a new draft presidential Decree on “Establishment of a unified
procedure of recognition of refugee status or benefit of subsidiary protection to aliens and
stateless persons in line with Directive 2005/85/EC if the Council” was presented. By that time
it was in consultation with civil society and still it has not been adopted not implemented as it
is to be sent to the Council of State. The most important issues concerning the new Presidential
Decree are: first of all the abrogation of the humanitarian clause (art.28 P.D. 114/2010) because
humanitarian protection status covers a large number of asylum seekers who have lived for
many years in Greece and have built strong bonds with the Greek society (private and social
life art. 8 ECHR), leaving all these people unprotected after the Presidential Decree comes into
force. Secondly, the abolition of the personal interview during the second instance
examinations presupposes well substantiated appeal of the asylum seeker. This appeal cannot