Penalty payments to asylum seekers suspended
The 'Temporary Penalty Payments by the IND (Suspension) Act' has been adopted by Parliament. This Act provides that asylum seekers will no longer be entitled to compensation (penalty payments) if the IND does not give a timely decision on their asylum applications. In principle, the new Act will be in effect for one year.
State Secretary for Justice and Security Broekers-Knol formed a task force in March that is supposed to eliminate the increased backlog of asylum applications to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) as soon as possible. Besides that, she has taken additional measures to reduce the strongly increased lead times of the asylum procedure and the backlog of penalty payment obligations. The introduction of a temporary act to suspend penalty payments in the asylum process is one of these measures. The temporary act helps the IND to give decisions again as soon as possible within the applicable time limits.
This Act will be in effect for a year in any case. The final Act will be presented to the House of Representatives in the autumn, in which it will finally be provided that no more penalty payments can be forfeited in third-country national cases. The State Secretary is planning to present the final Act abolishing penalty payments to the House of Representatives in the autumn.