Vol. 494 No. 4
390 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if it is the practice of his Department to ensure that, before any person is returned to another EU member state under the Dublin Convention, his Department will be assured that the person concerned will be admitted to the asylum and refugee application procedures in that country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18323/98]
Section 22 (5) of the Refugee Act, 1996, provides that a transfer under the terms of the Dublin Convention shall not take place unless the receiving country has agreed to accept responsibility for the examination of the application in question. It is important to note that the Convention's starting point is that it guarantees the member states' commitment to honour their obligations under the Geneva Convention which specifically provides that no contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
An underlying philosophy of the Dublin Convention is a basic confidence on the part of the member states in each other's procedures in relation to asylum law. The establishment of responsibility for examining applications for asylum implicitly pre-supposes that member states have mutual confidence in each other as one member state consents to an application for asylum lodged with it being processed by another member state in accordance with the latter's national legislation.
