Cap. 420 Art. 2Interpretation.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires -

"applicant" means a third country national or a stateless person who has made an application for international protection in respect of which a final decision has not yet been taken by the International

Protection Agency or the International Protection Appeals Tribunal;

"application for international protection" means a request made by a third country national or a stateless person which can be understood as a request for international protection unless the third country national explicitly requests another kind of protection outside the scope of this Act that can be applied for separately; "applicant in need of special procedural guarantees" means an applicant whose ability to benefit from the rights and comply with the obligations provided for in this Act or any subsidiary legislation made thereunder, is limited due to individual circumstances; "beneficiary of international protection" means a person who has been granted refugee status or subsidiary protection status in accordance with article 8 and article 17;

"the Chief Executive Officer" means the same as the meaning given to it by article 4 and includes, to the extent and authority given, any other person temporarily authorised on that behalf by the Minister; "Convention" or "Geneva Convention" means the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees done at Geneva on 28th July, 1951, to which Malta acceded on 17th June, 1971, and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 31st January, 1967 to which Malta acceded on 15th September, 1971, subject to the declarations and reservations made by Malta; "Convention Travel Document" means the travel document referred to in article 28 of the Convention;

"country of origin" means the country or countries of nationality or, for stateless persons, of former habitual residence;

"declaration" means a declaration that a person is a refugee; "determining authority" means the International Protection Agency; "Directives" means Council Directive 2011/95/EU on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted and Council Directive 2005/ 85/EC of 1 December 2005 on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status;

"family members" means, in so far as the family already existed in the country of origin, the following members of the family of the beneficiary of international protection who are present in Malta in relation to the application for international protection:

(a) the spouse of the beneficiary of international protection, or his or her unmarried partner in a stable relationship where recognised by law;

(b) the minor children of the spouse or partner or of the beneficiary of international protection referred to in paragraph (a) above, on condition that they are unmarried and regardless of whether they were born in or out of wedlock or adopted as defined under national law;

(c) the father, mother or another adult responsible for the beneficiary of international protection whether by law or by the practice of the Member State concerned, when that beneficiary is a minor and unmarried; "final decision" means a decision on whether the third country national or stateless person be granted refugee status or subsidiary protection status which is not subject to appeal, irrespective of whether such decision has the effect of allowing the applicants concerned to remain in Malta pending its outcome; "first country of asylum" means that country where an applicant for international protection:

(a) has been recognised in that country as a refugee and he can still avail himself of that protection; or

(b) he otherwise enjoys sufficient protection in that country including benefiting from the principle of non-and subject to re-admission to that refoulement country; "the High Commissioner" means the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees or his representative; "international protection" means refugee status or subsidiary protection; "legal adviser" means a person who is authorised to practise the legal profession in Malta in terms of the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure;

"manifestly unfounded" application means an application in relation to which:

(a) the applicant, in submitting his application and presenting the facts, has only raised issues that are not relevant to the examination of whether he qualifies as a beneficiary of international protection; or

(b) the applicant is from a safe country of origin; or

(c) the applicant has misled the authorities by presenting false information or documents or by withholding relevant information or documents with respect to his identity and/or nationality that could have had a negative impact on the decision; or

(d) it is likely that, in bad faith, the applicant has destroyed or disposed of an identity or travel document that would have helped establish his identity or nationality; or

(e) the applicant has made clearly inconsistent and contradictory, clearly false or obviously improbable representations which contradict sufficiently verified country-of-origin information, thus making his claim clearly unconvincing in relation to whether he qualifies as a beneficiary of international protection; or

(f) the applicant has introduced a subsequent application for international protection that is not inadmissible in accordance with article 24(1)(d); or

(g) the applicant is making an application merely in order to delay or frustrate the enforcement of an earlier or imminent decision which would result in his removal; or

(h) the applicant entered Malta unlawfully or prolonged his stay unlawfully and, without good reason, has either not presented himself to the authorities or has not made an application for international protection as soon as possible, given the circumstances of his entry; or

(i) the applicant refuses to comply with an obligation to have his fingerprints taken in accordance with Regulation (EU) No. 603/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on the establishment of Eurodac for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of Regulation

(EU) No. 604/2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member States responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person and on requests for the comparison with Eurodac data by Member States’ law enforcement authorities and Europol for law enforcement purposes; or

(j) the applicant may, for serious reasons, be considered a danger to national security or public order, or the applicant has been forcibly expelled for serious reasons of public security or public order under national law. "the Minister" means the Minister responsible for immigration, and any public officer to whom the Minister may delegate in writing any of the duties appertaining to him under this Act; "minor" means a third country national or stateless person below the age of eighteen years; "person eligible for subsidiary protection" means a third country national who does not qualify as a refugee but in respect of whom substantial grounds have been shown for believing that the person concerned, if returned to his country of origin, would face a real risk of suffering serious harm, and is unable or, owing to such risk, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country, and has not been excluded from being eligible for such protection under article 17(1); "prescribed" means prescribed by regulation, rule, order or other instrument made under any of the provisions of this Act empowering the making of any such instrument;

"refugee" means a third country national who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, as a result of such events is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it, but does not include a person excluded in terms of article 12: Provided that in the case where a person has more than one nationality, the term "country", mentioned above, shall refer to each country of which he is a national, and such a person shall not be considered as not having the protection of his country if, without any founded fear of persecution, he has not sought the protection of one of the countries of which such a person is a national: Provided further that:

(a) acts of persecution within the meaning of Article 1A of the Convention must be sufficiently serious by their nature or repetition as to constitute a severe violation of basic human rights, in particular the right from which derogation cannot be made under Article 15(2) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; or

(b) be an accumulation of various measures, including violations of human rights, which is sufficiently severe as to affect an individual in a similar manner as in paragraph (a). For the purpose of paragraph (a), "acts of persecution" means:

(a) acts of physical or mental violence, including acts of sexual violence;

(b) legal, administrative, police, and/or judicial measures which are in themselves discriminatory or which are implemented in a discriminatory manner;

(c) prosecution or punishment which is disproportionate or discriminatory;

(d) denial of judicial redress resulting in a disproportionate or discriminatory manner;

(e) prosecution or punishment for refusal to perform military service in a conflict, where performing military service would include crimes or acts falling within the scope of the grounds for exclusion as set out in article 12(2);

(f) acts of a gender-specific or child-specific nature: Provided that refugee status on the grounds of fear of persecution shall only be granted if there is a connection between the reasons for persecution mentioned in regulation 18 of the Procedural Standards in Examining Applications for International

Protection Regulations and the acts of persecution referred to in this definition; "refugee status" means the recognition of a third country national or stateless person as a refugee;

"remain" means to remain in the territory, including at the border or in transit zones, of the Member State in which the application for international protection has been made or is being examined; the right to remain shall not constitute an entitlement to a residence permit;

"representative" means a person or an organisation appointed by the competent bodies in order to assist and represent an unaccompanied minor in asylum procedures with a view to ensuring the best interests of the child and exercising legal capacity for the minor where necessary. Where an organisation is appointed as a representative, it shall designate a person responsible for carrying out the duties of a representative in respect of the unaccompanied minor;

"Member State" shall have the same meaning assigned to it by article 2 of the European Parliament Elections Act;

"safe country of origin" means a country of which the applicant, for the purpose of international protection:

(a) is a national; or

(b) being a stateless person, was formerly habitually resident in that country;

and he has not submitted any serious grounds for considering the country not to be a safe country of origin in his particular circumstances;; "safe third country" means a country of which the applicant is not a national or citizen and where -

(a) life and liberty are not threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion;

(b) the principle of in accordance with non-refoulement the Convention is respected;

(c) the prohibition of removal, in violation of the right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as laid down in international law, is respected;

(d) the possibility exists to request refugee status and, if found to be a refugee, to receive protection in accordance with the Convention;

(e) the applicant had resided for a meaningful period of time prior to his entry into Malta;

(f) there is no risk of serious harm as defined in this article;

"serious harm" means:

(a) death penalty or execution; or

(b) torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of an applicant in the country of origin; or

(c) serious and individual threat to a civilian’s life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict; "subsequent application" means a further application for international protection made after a final decision has been taken on a previous application; "subsidiary protection status" means the recognition of a third country national or a stateless person as a person eligible for subsidiary protection under Part IV;

"the Tribunal" means the International Protection Appeals Tribunal as established by article 5;

"unaccompanied minor" means a person below the age of eighteen years who arrives in Malta unaccompanied by an adult responsible for him whether by law or by custom, for as long as he is not effectively taken into the care of such a person and includes any minor who is left unaccompanied after he has entered Malta;

"withdrawal of international protection" means the decision by the International Protection Agency to revoke, end or refuse to renew the refugee or subsidiary protection status of a person.