Number of staff and nature of the first instance authority

Author

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Source: Ministry of Interior, March 2024.

The determining authority is the International Protection Procedures Division, which is part of the Migration directorate of the Ministry of the Interior. It is a specialised and centralised authority responsible for examining applications for international protection and competent to take decisions at first instance.

Out of 65 employees at the Migration directorate, 39 work in the International Protection Procedures division,11 of which make decisions on asylum applications. This means that the caseworker conducting the interview is not necessarily responsible for deciding on the asylum application. The separation of tasks between an interviewer and a decision-maker was introduced in June 2016 with the aim of speeding up and improving the efficiency of the asylum procedure. The lodging of the application is short and requires that the applicant states their reasons for asylum in few sentences. After an application for international protection is lodged, a “first interview on the merits” is conducted, during which the applicant provides detailed grounds for applying for asylum. The case is then referred to a “decision maker”, who can either issue a decision on the asylum application or decide to conduct a second interview on the merits. There is no official communication between the first interviewer and the decision-maker.

Regarding quality assurance, the Migration directorate has established a mechanism whereby each decision has to be authorised by a responsible official of the International Protection Procedures Division before it is issued. A review is thus conducted on the case files, the documentation, country of origin information (COI) and the decision made in the individual case. The authorised official can approve the decision, change it or give additional instructions regarding the procedure.[1]

In the absence of a specific unit responsible for applications from vulnerable persons, staff of the International Protection Procedures division of the Migration directorate receive specific training from the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA, the Agency) on three modules: interviewing vulnerable groups, interviewing children, gender identity and sexual orientation. [2]

During 2023, EUAA was deployed in Slovenia to provide support with asylum and reception. The EUAA provided support to the Ministry of the Interior with the aim to improve the quality and processing od asylum applications.[3]In 2023, two officials were trained on the following modules by the EUAA: Asylum seekers with different sexual orientations, gender identities and expression of gender characteristics, Victims of gender-based violence, Introduction to coaching and Relocation. In addition, the EUAA conducted several trainings for the Migration directorate as part of the EUAA operational plan. In line with the EUAA operational plan four officials became national trainers for the Trafficking of Human Beings module, one became a national trainer on Dublin procedures, two on Interviewing vulnerable persons and 3 on Interviewing children. In addition, 21 officials attended the training on Introduction to vulnerability and Working with the translator, 6 attended the training on Interviewing children, 1 attended the Training in communication with children in reception and 3 attended the module on Communication with children.[4]

[1] Information provided by the Migration directorate, March 2023.

[2] ECRE, Asylum authorities: an overview of internal structures and available resources, October 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/46VycDn, p. 45.

[3] EUAA: Operational plan 2022 agreed by the European Union Agency for Asylum and the Republic of Slovenia, available at: https://bit.ly/48AsXJh.

[4] Official statistics provided by the Migration directorate, March 2024.