It is a common fact that too many asylum seekers have to wait far too long for a decision in their asylum case. Although a minority receives a decision in less than a month, the majority has to wait for a decision for more than a year. Not only is this a source for a lot of stress, it also deprives them from a lot of basic rights, like family reunion, housing, the right to work and integrate in Dutch society.
In general, there is a possibility for citizens to urge the authorities to take action by lodging an appeal against the absence of a decision and demanding a penalty payment. However, this possibility has been blocked by the authorities with a special law for asylum cases. This law stipulated that the possibility to appeal against the absence of a decision and the possibility to demand a penalty payment do not apply in asylum cases. The reason to introduce this law was the fact that the IND was loosing too much money by paying all the penalties in the asylum cases. By introducing this law, the asylum-seekers and their legal representatives were left empty-handed, because they had no legal means to force the authorities to take a decision.
The Supreme Court (the Afdeling Bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State) has recently decided that asylum seekers, just like other citizens, should have the right to claim a penalty from the government. The Supreme Court considered d that as a result of this law, asylum seekers have no effective legal remedy to urge the authorities to take action. For this reason, the law is contrary to the fundamental principles of European law.
The normal term for the IND to take a decision is six months after the official application has been filed. This term can be postponed with nine months if it is necessary to do more investigations, or if the amount of applications is very high. It is necessary to give notice from the extension of this term within the six months period.
If the IND doesn’t decide on the asylum claim on time, the legal representative of the asylum seeker can give a notice of default to the IND and give them another term of two weeks. If those two weeks have passed, it is possible to file a complaint in the Court. Thanks to the latest decision from the Supreme Court, it is now also possible to request the Court to condemn the authorities to pay a penalty for each day that expires after the decision term. The penalty starts with € 1442 and the judge can also condemn the IND to pay a penalty for each day that the IND is too late with a maximum of € 15.000.