ASYLUM COORDINATION GROUP

On 20 January 2010, the Croatian Law Centre (CLC) organized this year's first Asylum Coordination Group meeting.

The Asylum Coordination Group is an informal forum, initiated by UNHCR, which began its work in late 2003. The Croatian Law Center (CLC), NGO and UNHCR's implementing partner in providing free legal aid to asylum seekers, took over the chairmanship of the Coordination Group's quarterly meetings. The Coordination Group also gathers representatives of governmental bodies (Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Croatian People's Ombudsman Office, Office of the Ombudsperson for Children, Office for Human Rights, Administrative Court of the Republic of Croatia etc.), NGOs and organizations like Croatian Red Cross and Human Rights Centre.

The lecture on the meeting's topic, ''New Provisions in the Law on General Administrative Procedure related to the asylum system'', was given by prof. dr. sc. Dragan Medvedovic, a revered academic and expert in the field of administrative law.

Following the lecture, participants discussed numerous other topics important for the development of the asylum system and exchanged information of relevance to the participants. Among other things, experiences stemming from the governmental bodies and NGOs working with refugees and asylum seekers were discussed.

The Coordination also discussed the "Monitoring Police Conduct in the Field of Illegal Migrations and Asylum" project, concluded in the Zagreb Police Department area of responsibility (AoR) in December 2009, and will be continued in the Primorsko-goranska, Varazdinska and Medimurska County Police Departments AoRs. The aim of the project is the improvement of the sensitive border management in order to ensure that access to international protection is available to persons in need. The project is conducted by the Ministry of Interior and CLC in cooperation with the Dutch Refugee Council. It is financed by the MATRA programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and part of a larger project entitled "Strengthening Croatian Civil Society in the Field of Migrations and Asylum in the Pre-Accession Process of the Republic of Croatia to the European Union". During its implementation in the past year, there were no reports of violation of human rights and no criticisms were made to police work.. This project is supported by UNHCR and considered of great importance.

UNHCR informed the meeting participants of its cooperation with the Croatian People's Ombudsman in the regional, EU and UNHCR sponsored, ‘'Social Inclusion: support to marginalized communities'' project aimed at provision of free legal aid to Roma people in order to regularize their status or obtain full citizenship rights.