Browsing by Subject "Best interest principle"

This thesis sets out to examine whether the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland applies the best interest principle laid down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in its deci-sions on international protection of children. To analyze whether the Supreme Administrative Court applies the best interest principle in its case law on international protection of children and in what manner it is applied, both a quantitative and qualitative research methodology are applied. The analysis is limited to cases whose decisions were issued between 2015 and 2018, with the year 2015 marking the starting point of the global refugee crisis, as well as significant amendments that were made to the Finnish Aliens Act and its provisions on international protection the same year. Identified using specific criteria, a total of 16 Supreme Administrative Court decisions on international protection are selected and analyzed as the primary material for the study. Overall, this thesis concludes that the Supreme Administrative Court does tend to make reference to the best interest principle in the majority (14 out of 16) of the analyzed cases on international protection. This principle is most often referenced in conjunction with the domestic legal principles laid out in the Finnish Aliens Act. More specifically, the Court refers to the sections 6 and 146 of the Finnish Aliens Act in the majority of the cases, but the scope of applying these provisions is narrow, with the Court revealing its tendency to merely cite these sections in most of the analyzed decisions, rather than provide detailed consideration of the essential elements of the best interest principle. Out of the 16 analyzed decisions, only one includes a direct reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its article 3, or the Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comments 6 and 14. Moreover, the Court’s application of the best interest principle in the analyzed material is not systematic, and the majority of the analyzed decisions lack the inclusion of a best interest assessment. Since the Supreme Administrative Court decides each case with consideration of the facts on a case-by-case basis, it is not possible to generalize the findings of this study or make significant broad conclusions concerning the success of failure of the Court’s engagement with the best interest principle. However, the findings of this thesis align with similar previous academic studies indicating a gap in the application and assessment of the best in-terest principle by the Supreme Administrative Court.