STAFF DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION TRAINING PROGRAMME REGARDING REFUGEES AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS

The Staff Development Organisation (SDO) in the Prime Minister's Office in collaboration with the Ministry for Home Affairs is organising a training programme, between the 6 and 8 March 2001, titled Procedures under the Malta Refugee Act and Interviewing Techniques. This event is in support of the Refugee Act, 2000 and the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis.

The Act on refugees and asylum-seekers provides for the creation of a Refugee Commissioner to examine applications for refugee status and a separate Refugee Appeals Board. The law also provides for procedures relating to applications for refugee status, treatment of asylum-seekers, rights of refugees, children or young persons in need of care and resettlement of refugees. It brings Malta in line with international obligations under the Geneva Convention on Refugees.

Another important development arising from the Refugee Law is that the responsibilities for the recognition of refugee status and the consequent resettlement questions will shortly be dealt with by the Maltese Government.

This programme, in fact, is part of the capacity building process for the implementation of asylum policy. It is being facilitated by Ms Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor and Ms Helena Behr, experts on Asylum policies from UNHCR, and is targeted at officials from the Ministry for Home Affairs (Immigration Division and Refugees Commissioner's Office).

As a result of this training activity, participants will be able to:

comprehend and apply Malta's refugee status determination procedures, as laid out in the Refugee Act;

understand the specific issues involved in interviewing asylum-seekers;

collect and record relevant information from the asylum-seekers in an appropriate manner;

properly identify cases that, under the law, may be channelled through accelerated procedures; and

distinguish between admissibility and manifestly unfounded claims.

An important component of this training activity is the session on interviewing techniques, as applied to asylum procedures. This session will cover matters such as dealing with discrepancies or apparent lack of credibility and dealing with potentially sensitive cases involving women, children and traumatised persons.

This training event is one of a number of activities being organised by the SDO for the Ministry for Home Affairs staff in line with the Ministry's training strategy.