ONE way or the other, foreign workers will get the right to change their employer, foreign students the right to seek limited employment and deportees the right to appeal.
Legal Service representative Nicoletta Charalambidou told the House Human Rights Committee yesterday that immigration laws would be amended automatically with a solution to the Cyprus problem based on the Annan plan.
If the people vote ‘no’ in the upcoming referenda, an amendment bill would be put before parliament by the end of April, said Charalambidou, to incorporate the changes in immigration policy. The new bill will be fully compatible with EU laws and the Schengen Agreement, she added.
Regarding the deportation of foreigners, Charalambidou said the new bill provided for the formation of a review authority to re-examine deportation decisions. The authority will be given the power to issue judicial decisions, speeding up the decision-making process.
Foreigners seeking an appeal cannot be deported immediately unless under exceptional circumstances and even then they still have the right for their appeal to be heard.
Regarding foreigners studying in Cyprus, the legal official said the new law provided foreign students with a limited right to employment under certain conditions. Up to now, students have not been allowed to fund their education by working on the island. As a result, a number of students had to give up their studies or have been kicked out when caught working illegally.
Other changes include issuing working permits to foreign workers for a particular employment sector, as opposed to the past when a worker received a permit to work with a specific employer.
The worker will now get the right to choose and change their employer within the particular sector for which their permit was issued and will no longer be tied down to a specific employer.
Third country nationals holding working permits issued in another EU state will have the right to work in Cyprus within the same field as long as there are no other foreign workers on the island or Cypriots available within that specific field.
The bill’s preparation was delayed due to the huge workload needed for the examination of laws and treaties under the Annan plan, said Charalambidou.
Head of the Immigration Department, Annie Siakalli, said the issues of asylum, foreigners, immigration, nationality and freedom of movement within the EU were already incorporated in the Annan plan and a ‘yes’ vote in the referenda would immediately enact these laws. Otherwise, the final bill will be put before parliament by the end of April.
The Justice Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Lazaros Savvides, told the Committee that the Immigration Department checked 34,175 foreigners last year, from which 3,796 were illegal immigrants, compared to 726 illegal immigrants in 2002.
During 2003, 412 foreigners were caught working illegally while 3,115 foreigners were deported. Over 3,400 were refused entry while 2,209 applied for asylum. The latter figure reveals a huge increase in asylum applications compared to the 353 applicants in 2002.
From January 1 2004 to date, police located 1,014 illegal immigrants and deported 695.
A police representative at the Committee said it was very difficult to prove that a foreigner had purposefully burnt his documents before applying for political asylum. For this purpose, Theodoros Theodorou said the authorities were considering taking fingerprints on entry to the island to help in their investigations.
