For asylum seekers who have exhausted all legal remedies and who cannot be deported from the Netherlands because they refuse a corona test, such a test must be made possible under duress. The government will amend the law for this.
Between early 2021 and February 2022, 1,490 deportation flights had to be canceled after a foreign national refused a corona test, State Secretary Eric van der Burg (Asiel, VVD) wrote to the House of Representatives. This concerns flights to the country of origin, but also flights to other EU countries where the asylum seeker applied for asylum before he or she arrived in the Netherlands.
This made it difficult to return aliens who are not entitled to asylum, for example because they come from a country that has been designated as ‘safe’. Many airlines and countries require a negative test result.
Feasibility of return policy under pressure
Van der Burg expects these entry restrictions to continue to apply ‘for an even longer period of time’. “The impact is such that the feasibility of the return policy is under fundamental pressure.” It is ‘crucial’ for a properly functioning asylum policy, he says, that those who are not entitled to protection leave the Netherlands.
The coalition agreement already stipulates that the cabinet will combat ‘frustration of expulsion’. VVD MP Peter Valstar previously called on the cabinet by motion to investigate whether a mandatory test is possible. That is possible, the cabinet concludes, but only ‘in the most extreme case’. This means that there are no alternatives, such as quarantine or vaccination data. “This measure fits in with this and is necessary for the return process to function properly,” says Van der Burg.
Doctor-patient confidentiality
For the bill, the cabinet will examine whether ‘a judicial review or assessment’ is required for each compulsory test. It will be examined on a case-by-case basis whether personal circumstances make a forced test impossible. There is also another practical obstacle: a doctor or other care provider must be prepared to take a test under duress. “They make an independent assessment of this,” Van der Burg writes.
If a doctor does agree to taking the test, he or she is obliged to share the test result with the Repatriation & Departure Service ‘irrespective of the result’. For this, medical professional secrecy must be broken. But that, according to the State Secretary, is ‘limited to a minimum’.
The cabinet also looked at whether doctors can be relieved of sharing the vaccination status of an asylum seeker who has exhausted all legal remedies, if the asylum seeker refuses to do so. That did meet with objections about the medical professional secrecy of doctors. According to Van der Burg, ‘the usefulness, necessity and proportionality of such a bill cannot be sufficiently demonstrated’.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.
#Cabinet #Forced #corona #test #rejected #asylum #seeker #refuses #test