Proposition 53K1824

Projet de loi modifiant l'article 9ter de la loi du 15 décembre 1980 sur l'accès au territoire, le séjour, l'établissement et l'éloignement des étrangers.

General information ¶

Submitted by

CD&V Leterme Ⅱ

Submission date

Oct. 19, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

foreign national migration policy political asylum admission of aliens residence permit refugee illness

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

VB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

Dec. 1, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Jacqueline Galant and Nahima Lanjri, rapporteurs, refer to their written report.

I will be very brief.

This draft does not concern the complete revision of the procedure for obtaining a residence permit for medical reasons, but it is a first, and for us, very important step in addressing the improper use of this procedure.

Dear colleagues, it must be clear. For us, everyone who is in the territory and who gets seriously ill should have the opportunity to also be cared for and to stay here, but it is clear that the abuse of this procedure must be addressed.

This proposal is a first step in this direction for two important reasons. First, a receptivity phase will be introduced. There will be control by the doctors of DVZ to verify whether or not the disease is life-threatening if the persons would be returned. Secondly, the duration of the validity of the medical certificate will be limited to three months.

We will support this project with great conviction. I would also like to thank everyone who has contributed to this, in particular Secretary of State Wathelet. We will probably still see you in a different capacity, but this past year has been a privilege to work with you.

It is clear that there are abuses in the procedures of regularization for medical reasons. The project we are discussing today proposes to limit these abuses. The text proposes that the standard medical certificate be dated less than three months. It also proposes the establishment of a medical filter. It will also be able to declare without object a request from 9ter when the foreigner has obtained an unlimited residence permit on the basis of another procedure. A number of issues have been discussed in the committee.

I would simply like to welcome the fact that from now on the Office will have 23 additional public doctors. We believe that this will meet the requirements for shorter procedures.

Finally, I would like to remind you that it has always been clear to my group that abuse and fraud attempts in medical regularization should be limited. This will effectively handle real 9ter requests and make decisions faster, which is obviously in the patient’s interest.

In conclusion, my group will vote on the text that is submitted to us because it meets all the objectives we pursue.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Secretary of State, I will speak a little longer. This may be the last time you are here in your capacity as Secretary of State for Migration.

It is good that this bill has arrived and that the eyes of the government, still in ongoing affairs, have finally opened.

You know that the N-VA had already in December 2010 submitted a number of amendments to the law containing various provisions to end the many abuses within Article 9ter, the conscious article that regulates the medical regularisations.

Then all those amendments almost immediately referred to the garbage dump. Therefore, it makes us somewhat virtuous to see, eleven months later, our submitted amendments almost literally taken over in your draft law, which was submitted on 19 October 2011 and which is under discussion today.

It has taken you some time, but you have realized that today within that 9ter, within that procedure for medical regularization, there is an enormous amount of abuse. It was also literally stated in the explanation of your bill that you want to address those abuses.

However, we think that the measures you take, the few measures we find good, are not sufficient to help those abuses out of the world. I will explain myself further later.

The regularisation figures showed a proportion of 51 % of applications for medical regularisations and 49 % for humanitarian regularisations in 2011. The majority of applications are, therefore, apparently already applications for medical reasons. Only half of them are declared admissible and of that half only 5 % are approved in substance.

If we see that 95 % of applications are admissible, but ultimately do not have a medical basis and are thus rejected, we can only conclude that there is a serious disproportion in a procedure that initially saw the light of life as a preferential regime.

Mr. Secretary of State, N-VA has been demanding for years a stricter policy on medical regularization. You have always asked this question next to you and you want to look at everything case by case. Even fraudulent elements in a file—which has been a point of dispute between you and me for almost two years—are not automatically rejected. In the meantime, it has been proven that this is not the case with humanitarian regularization, but this is not the case with medical regularization.

Nevertheless, you have recognized that abuses exist and that they need to be addressed.

It is good that you have pushed forward the intervention of the medical official, of the official-physician of the Foreign Affairs Service in that whole 9bis procedure. This is a good point, as we have said in the committee. In the admissibility phase, the doctor, the doctor of the Foreign Affairs Service, is now almost immediately involved in the procedure and therefore can also almost immediately judge the admissibility or inadmissibility of a application. That is a good element, which was also in our proposal a year ago.

Based on that standard medical certificate, the doctor should then give advice in the first phase. That is a filter that is now being pushed forward and which thus immediately allows to immediately exclude manifestly unfounded requests, which we believe will provide a deterrent effect in the medical requests.

Until now, this has not been the case. There was no clear framework within which doctors should judge. The medical certificate you introduced last year partly met that. Now we go a little further, a little step further.

Expropriated asylum seekers, who, according to the Fedasil doctors, do not need comprehensive medical care, will now not have to go through that long procedure of medical regularization, but will be filtered out faster.

Mr. Secretary of State, until then the good news. I just said that we fear that the fraud will not be out of the world, especially for medical regularization. Not all of our proposals were taken over by the government. Therefore, we have pledged in the committee that our amendments from the end of last year have been reconsidered, yet at least discussed, which we have done more or less, more or less, in the committee. But come, you listened to them. Whether you answered it is another question. Whether you have considered them is another question.

One of these is the obligation of identification. This is an important matter. Currently, the link between medical regularization and subsidiary protection still exists, so that anyone applying for medical regularization does not have to prove their identity using their official identity form. All means of right to prove his identity are sufficient for an application for medical regularization. This is because in our country that is linked to subsidiary protection, which is actually an alternative form of asylum.

A less stringent form of asylum. I have requested to disconnect those two systems, making it a requirement to prove their identity on the basis of the official identity document when applying for medical regularization. You didn’t want to do that; I think this is a missed opportunity.

In addition, we believe that an application can only be submitted by those who actually already reside in Belgium. Today, anyone from his country can apply for medical regularization, even if he has not actually set foot on Belgian soil.

We also emphasized the need to submit the application for medical regularization in writing to DVZ, clearly indicating the place of permanent residence so that it can be verified by the municipality. We discussed this. I believe that Mrs. Genot had also submitted that amendment, but has withdrawn it. That amendment has known a long discussion, in which you said – also Mr. Somers has intermitted for a moment – that the municipality automatically does the housing control and our amendment therefore had no reason for existence. We wanted to see that legally anchored, so that the municipality, at the request of DVZ and after information from DVZ to that municipality, should automatically do that residential check so that we are sure that the applicants have effectively set foot on Belgian soil. You had no ears for that.

It is also proposed – and that is another positive element in the draft – that if a foreigner has failed to comply with a call sent by registered letter, his request can be declared without effect. That is a kind of technical refusal, if one does not give a valid reason not to be present at his hearing. That is a good point.

What we have asked, and you know that we have hammered on it, concerns another very bad point: at the moment there can still be a cumulative of procedures, Mr. Secretary of State. This includes the cumulation of the asylum procedure with the regularization procedure. In practice, a person who submits an asylum application and when at the end of the trip it turns out that the application will be assessed negatively, quickly submits another application 9ter. An ongoing procedure prevents that result must be given to the order to leave the territory. That accumulation causes a lot of wrong requests – I have mentioned the percentages later – to medical regularization, only to extend the stay in the reception centers. These are asylum seekers who stay in the reception centers and are allowed to stay there as long as the medical regularization procedure is ongoing.

Therefore, following the Netherlands, we saw salvation in the solution to prohibit the cumulation of procedures. One must choose, from the beginning: either you submit an asylum application, or you are sick and then you submit an application for medical regularization. One should not cumulate the two and one should ⁇ not quickly start the other at the end of the first procedure. You cannot bet on two horses. That is not fair. That is abuse, either of the asylum procedure, or of the medical regularization, and in the worst case of both. In addition, it is a huge burden on the civil servants, the Foreign Affairs Service.

We have discussed this. You did not want it. We see salvation in it. Prohibit the cumulation and make sure, if anyone wants to apply for medical regularization, that it happens sequentially, so that one is first expelled. If, however, it turns out that one is sick and that the appropriate medical care cannot be provided in the country of origin, then one can still perfectly apply for medical regularization in our country. However, you and I know that the processed asylum applicant who effectively returns may not return. The prohibition on cumul has a deterrent effect.

Mr. Secretary of State, I come to my conclusion. Your design is a step in the right direction. That makes us happy, but you should have gone further. In order to tackle the fraud, you should have at least accepted the identification obligation and the cumulative prohibition, as an amendment to the N-VA, in your design. You have failed to do that. We find that regrettable. Of course, we will not vote against or abstain, because we find the points you have proposed in themselves good. We hope that you or your successor will once again see the light and yet introduce those two other points, so that the abuse of medical regularization is effectively helped out of the world. The procedure serves what it serves, it is a favourable regime for the sick who cannot be cared for in his country of origin.

Mr. Secretary of State, behind you you see Theo Francken, my respectable colleague, who contributed to the migration story. We have a small gift, however, to thank you for always leading our differences in good ways. We have always been able to work with respect for each other and we would like to thank you for that, Mr. Secretary of State.

(Mr. Theo Francken handed over a book to the Secretary of State.)

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Secretary of State, we have already decided here last week on a number of important measures on asylum and migration. Then it was about a number of measures concerning the limitation of the influx and also concerning the closing part of the asylum and migration procedure, namely the return of refused asylum seekers, i.e. the outflow.

This is a draft that we approved last week. Today we are delighted to see that we can here again approve a government draft regarding addressing abuse. It is about abuses in the regularization, more specifically in the medical regularization.

The figures of the past years have shown that measures in this regard are urgently needed. In the past six months, there were 7,959 applications for medical regularization. The figures also show that, generally speaking, only 5 % of applications will eventually be recognized.

The number of ⁇ 8 000 applications in the first half of 2011 is even higher than the normal number of applications for humanitarian regularization, which has never occurred. Therefore it is also important to examine the phenomenon and to dare to acknowledge that there are abuses in the matter, or that among the applicants there are persons who misuse the procedure of medical regularisation, which is intended for a limited group.

Another point is that the procedure takes some time, since medical regularization is based on medical grounds. Due to the many requests and the many unjustified requests, the authorities concerned have, in the meantime, been quite backward. Currently, more than 11 000 cases — or 11 000 families — are waiting for treatment. This has already been addressed by an increase in the number of official doctors or approved doctors with whom it is collaborating, in order to remove the backwardness. Currently there are thirteen doctors and soon ten doctors will be added, thus almost doubling their number. Such an extension is also necessary to eliminate the backwardness.

However, in addition to removing the backwardness, it is also important to address the abuses. This legislative amendment mainly introduces a filter, allowing abuses to be filtered and deterred, so that the actual applications can be thoroughly examined and it can be verified whether the persons concerned are indeed eligible for medical regularization. All unjustified requests must be rejected.

From now on, it is required that the standardized medical certificate, which was previously introduced by the government, must be very recent, i.e. not older than three months. Regularization can also no longer be for any disease, influenza for example, but it must be for a serious disease that is not to be treated in the country of origin. So it can’t be for a dip or a flu, it must be a serious illness. This is left to the assessment of the official physician, or to the authorized physician.

Finally, the application of the person who has been granted a residence permit in the meantime because he was recognized through the previous asylum procedure, but who wagered on two horses and also applied for medical regularization, is void.

Applications from people who do not appear for a call are also dismissed. Anyone applying for medical regularization will be invited. The lawyer can also be informed. If one does not give home, it is obvious that the application expires and that one then gets a negative response to the regularization request.

Mr. Secretary of State, we are convinced that these new measures are an important step, not only in speeding up the processing of applications for residence and regularisations, but also in preventing unjustified applications and the abuse of regularization. Such abuses cast a negative light on all those who rightly submit an application. They also overload our OCMWs.

I know, Mr. Secretary of State, that this latter is not within your competence. We will look at this together with the next government team, which will have one Minister for Asylum and Migration. We will therefore ask him or her, in the case of medical regularization, to give people who have been declared receptive no longer financial support, as is now the case, but material support. Now anyone who has been declared admissible to the OCMW can take steps and receive financial support, not only for themselves but for the whole family, as long as the application is not handled.

In our opinion, and Ms. Temmerman also noted that in the committee, it is necessary to check whether OCMW support should be granted to those who are declared admissible, but who are not yet finally admitted to a stay on our territory on the basis of that medical regularization. It may be appropriate, as, by the way, was decided in the draft government agreement, to provide material support in order to avoid medical regularization creating a suction effect. In fact, some assume that they will still receive financial support for a few months, which also overloads the OCMWs. Again, Ms. Temmerman and others have also noted that we need to think about it and re-examine it.

Mr. Secretary of State, this observation does not relate to your competence. We are on the eve of forming a new government, and this decision will therefore be taken by the new team.

Finally, I would like to say that we are very grateful to you and that we appreciate that you have taken measures, also in ongoing cases, to manage the asylum crisis, such as deploying additional persons to the services, the CGVS, the DVZ, the Council for Foreign Disputes, and the measures that we adopted last week with regard to the influx and outflow, as well as addressing the abuses.

We hope that in the future we can continue to count on your further support, in whatever capacity, for which we thank you. I would also like to promise you our support for your design.

Mr. Speaker, as is specified in Ms. Galant’s report, the bill we are called to vote today complements the measures already adopted by this Parliament as part of the essential reform of our immigration policy.

Indeed, after the reform and strengthening of the rules concerning family reunification, remember, and after the reform of the law on the reception of asylum seekers, in order to better guarantee the right to asylum to those who are entitled to it and to give a quick response to others, we vote today for measures that are of equal importance and which, coupled with the others previously cited, must ⁇ end what we denounce, at the level of the MR, as a form of migratory air call, of which our territory has probably been the victim.

This involves the implementation of urgent measures to limit the flow of applications under Article 9ter of the Foreigners Act. It was important, indeed, that in this context too, possible abuses be, as far as possible, eliminated, permanently eliminated.

It was also necessary to avoid any communication vase effect and to ensure that the firmness and rationality, which we have demonstrated during the adoption of recent reforms, do not cause a congestion with regard to other routes of access to the territory, otherwise the risk was great to see the texts that we had already voted, eventually lose much of their efficiency.

A responsible immigration policy must show certain coherence so that abusive immigration is not channeled to other possibilities, to other routes, such as the one offered by Article 9ter.

Furthermore, the MR group welcomes that common sense measures are coming to reduce the possibilities and scope of requests and that a pre-admissibility filter is introduced. Ms. Lanjri referred to this in her speech, speaking of medical regularization. Demanding an assessment, or even a certain severity, from the doctors of the Foreign Office, as well as a recent health assessment, appear, in fact, to constitute elementary conditions, obvious of common sense. This is in the interest of the applicant himself, as he will know more quickly whether the procedure initiated has a chance or not to succeed.

The message given by this bill is clear. Until the procedure has been declared admissible, the person concerned is not granted a temporary residence permit, contrary to the situation that prevailed so far and according to which a temporary residence permit was issued as soon as the application for regularisation was submitted on the basis of Article 9ter. This will discourage – this is, in any case, what the Reform Movement hopes – the introduction of demands which, unfortunately, for some of them, have little chance of succeeding.

In conclusion, I would say that the MR group will naturally support this text. We hope, however, that both for this project and for other previously adopted texts, to which the transposition of the Return Directive and the adoption of a list of safe countries must be added, the rapid implementation, by the implementation of appropriate means, can be ensured. We think here in particular about the involvement of additional doctors at the level of the Foreign Office, which has been admitted to be a necessity.

We will be attentive to the work and implementation, by the new single minister or the new single minister, of this immigration policy. Let him know that we will be on his side to ensure that the reform work of immigration policy can be done quickly, consistently, humanistically and, ⁇ , more responsibly than in the past.

Mr. Speaker, we are expected to discuss this day the medical regularization, thus the possibility for a person to obtain a residence status in the event of a serious illness for which there is no treatment available in their country.

We all share the desire to handle these files as quickly as possible. Currently, some wait several years before getting a response, which is unacceptable to someone in a precarious situation.

The question is: will the text submitted to us enable us to ⁇ this goal?

The fact of hiring doctors is ⁇ positive; that is why we have always supported the involvement of additional staff to enable the examinations to be carried out in good conditions and as quickly as possible. This is a step in the right direction.

I am concerned about the filter system. For now, there is already a procedure in two times: a phase of admissibility followed by a phase of substantive examination; a filter would be added. The risk is high that all the efforts of the additional medical staff will focus on this new filter and that once this filter phase is passed, applicants will still wait a long time for their file to be handled on the bottom and closed.

For us, the concern is real. We hope that a monitoring will be established so that sufficient resources will be allocated for the examination of the files on the ground.

The other problem generated by the filter will arise from the fact that while waiting for the examination of their application, these people will not have the possibility of reception. In my view, leaving sick people on the street is problematic.

You had announced us a fairly fast filter procedure by repeatedly telling us in commission "that it would take a month." The difficulty for us is whether the deadline will really be one month. Indeed, in other procedures, the forecasts were six months for asylum applications – remember our debates in 2006 during the asylum reform – and, in reality, they are not fulfilled on the ground.

That is why we had submitted an amendment providing that in the event of an application not examined within the month, the applicants can benefit from the reception. That is a minimum.

Moreover, this status of medical regularization is a choice of Belgium to adapt the subsidiary protection. Any person holding the status of subsidiary protection is entitled to reception. Belgium’s legal choice cannot lead to negative consequences for the people.

In summary, we fear that seriously ill people will have to be left on the street for one, or even several months, waiting for their file to be examined. That would be unacceptable.

Recently again, the Charleroi Hospital put on the street a dying lady. Incredible, but this is not an isolated case: already before, the hospital of Charleroi had already put out other people in the same state. I confess my concern to learn from such situations and that is why I would like to be assured that this text does not pursue such a goal.

Mr. Secretary of State, I may make you a pleasure by saying here explicitly that the Flemish Interest Group will not thank you. That will reassure you. We have several reasons for this. When Van Rompuy left here – he actually did only one thing, he complained to himself that he did nothing, quiet fatality or something like that – he missed one thing, namely an agreement on the regularisations. Once he had poured that into an instruction, the Flemish Interest Group went to the State Council. The State Council destroyed that instruction. Then you said that you would not attract anything from that destruction and that with your discretionary authority and that instruction in hand, you would simply continue. We have even recently experienced – we will return to your successor – that the Order of Lawyers at the Foreign Affairs Service held a meeting with the main title “Application by the Minister of the Instruction on the Regulation of Foreigners”. These are completely illegal situations.

For this we do not expressly thank you, Mr. Secretary of State! We will see who will be your successor. I hope that there will still be secretaries of state. I do not hope it for the country, but for you I hope it will be so that you will return to the federal policy level. Then we will ask you about it, otherwise your successor. So not thank you.

The present draft provides for a few minor adjustments to Article 9ter of the Foreigners Act. The draft law is intended to counter the abuse of the medical regularization procedure. The Flemish Interest, as the only party, will vote against the draft, I understand, because the system of medical regularization as such remains, while there is no international or European obligation to provide for such a procedure. Therefore, in many European Member States there is no legal provision similar to Article 9b.

We therefore fear that the reintroduction of Article 9ter, or at least the introduction in any other way of that article, will confirm the trend of regularizing foreigners, because their social security is not as performant as our own. Therefore, it remains a backdoor, where one regularizes for wrong reasons.

Furthermore, the European Court of Human Rights has only once condemned a Member State, namely Britain, for sending a sick person back to his country of origin. According to Strasbourg jurisprudence, the return of a sick foreigner constitutes a violation of the ECHR only if he suffers from a disease which is in a very advanced and terminal stage and there are no relatives in his country that can provide the necessary basic care.

The Flemish Interest considers that there is no need for a separate legal procedure to take into account such very exceptional circumstances. For this purpose, there are other instruments, such as the postponement of the departure or, in the ultimate case, the granting of a temporary residence permit on the basis of the discretionary power of the Minister or the Secretary of State. It goes without saying that it is not desirable to send back terminally sick foreigners.

A separate legal provision with a corresponding procedure can only result in an attraction effect and the accumulation of procedures to extend the stay in Belgium as long as possible.

It is therefore for all the reasons listed that the Flemish Interest will not approve the draft. The Flemish Interest continues to advocate for the definitive abolition of Article 9b.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Secretary of State, colleagues, in the past few months we have been able to pass an important set of legislative proposals and laws in the Parliament in the field of migration, all aimed at reviewing, commemorating our migration flows, redefining the gateway to our country and somewhat reducing the dependence migration to our country. Compared to other European countries, it is relatively large.

In this dossier, we encounter a complex matter in which we identify a field of tension that we find very often when we talk about migration. It is, on the one hand, about guaranteeing a humanitarian right, a fundamental right worthy of a normal civilization. People who are seriously ill are not simply expelled from the country. On the other hand, it should be taken care to ensure that that gate is not widely abused.

Based on the figures, we find that today, cautiously expressed, a lot of improper use of Article 9ter is being made to get access to our territory. The figures have already been cited here: 11 000 dossiers this year – which is more than the dossiers under Article 9a –, a very low recognition rate, namely 5 %, half of the dossiers declared admissible and a large backwardness resulting from this.

In my opinion, everyone has understood that we must key to that and note that law. This has also been shown in the committee meetings.

Mr. Secretary of State, you did that by supporting a proposal that strengthens that gate in three ways. A first way is by enabling the receptivity filter of officials-physicians who will investigate and check the severity of the alleged disease.

I think that is the most important measure, so that one cannot simply get access to the territory with a false illness or with a doctor’s certificate obtained somewhere.

This humanitarian regularization has, in fact, a significant advantage for the person from whom the file is declared admissible. If only 5 % is recognized and 50 % is declared admissible, and one knows that from the admissibility procedure it follows that one can call with his whole family to an OCMW and thus obtain a right to support, the temptation for some becomes very great to look for a doctor's license and thus obtain an admissibility in our country.

If one still knows that this procedure can be restarted every time, it becomes an incorrect gateway.

In short, officials-physicians will better guard that entrance gate.

Second, the medical certificate must be recent, not older than three months.

Third, the person concerned must respect a number of rules of the game during the admissibility phase. When he is called, he must appear. If a right of residence has been granted in another procedure, his application shall be considered without object in the admissibility phase. Finally, receivability is not granted when it turns out that he has not provided all useful and up-to-date information.

Mr. Secretary of State, I think that this may be just a first but important step in re-examining the gate on the basis of medical regularization, that we continue to guarantee the right to support for people who are seriously sick, but that we at the same time exclude abuse as much as possible.

I would also like to comment on two points addressed by the N-VA. I am pleased that we did not follow them in the bill.

The first point is the question of having the procedures run sequentially, in succession. I think that would be a mistake. This extends the possibilities of persons to stay in our country and thus makes it possible to shift a final judgment on the long run.

I am therefore strongly convinced that the two procedures must be integrated and that the participants should put as many of their cards as possible from the beginning on the table.

Mr. Somers, I am glad to see you. You were not always present in the committee. You only attended the last meeting on this subject. I understood that you had busy times behind you in Mechelen.

Mrs. Smeyers, I was also not here last week because I was on a parliamentary mission to Congo, on behalf of the Parliament. I have already been dealt with by the N-VA. I have not been here at one committee meeting. I was present at all committee meetings. This cannot be said of everyone in the N-VA. I find that really down the belt and little intellectual to conduct such a debate.

You would like to say that, the last week already, I have signaled that M. Somers was in the Congo. Every week, you dois signaler que M. Summer is in the Congo. I am sorry!

Mrs. Smeyers, I am fortunate to be the mayor of a big city, because this is the level of village politics.

Another point of the N-VA I do not understand as mayor at all. They propose to include in the law that municipalities are obliged to carry out a residential check within the framework of this law. Regardless of the fact that it belongs to the core of the executive power’s tasks to determine those modalities without having to register it in the law, I consider it a typical example of bullying by the local authorities. In the party programs of almost all parties here is present that one wants to consult the local governments first and ask for information before giving new assignments. Here, by way of a law, a new obligation would be placed on the shoulders of the municipal governments. I absolutely do not understand that.

I understand it even less because the person concerned has no interest in providing a wrong address. The law says that when he does not appear his application becomes without object. What does a applicant for medical regularization gain when providing an incorrect address? and nothing. I do not understand this urge to regulationitis and bullying of local authorities. We all advocate reducing it until it comes into practice.

As the mayor of a downtown city facing this problem, I am very pleased that these two proposals of the N-VA are not registered in the law.

Finally, I would like to thank you, Mr. Secretary of State, for all the efforts and good cooperation over the past year.

I understand that I have stepped you on the toes, Mr. Somers, but I was really happy to see you. This was just the intro of my comment. I don’t just take the word to say something.

I will go back to that cumulative. I would like to take part in your story, from the reason that outgoing asylum seekers still remain and then submit that application for medical regularization. It is intended that outgoing asylum seekers are effectively returned. That is the first premise of our proposal and, secondly, that they choose between this or that procedure from the outset, because otherwise it would overload the Foreign Affairs Service. This is the true background of the proposal.

It is an inhumane position. I give you the example of someone who is convinced in honour and conscience of being a political refugee. In addition, he is seriously ill. You force that person to choose between one of the two. If that person in honor and conscience assumes that he is a political refugee and he is rejected, then in your reasoning that person is returned sick in an airplane to try to get medical regularization from there. From my humanitarian point of view, I find this unacceptable.

The outcome of both procedures is the same: a residence permit.

The result of both procedures is simply an authorization from the Foreign Affairs Service to stay here on the territory. If someone is convinced to be a political refugee but is not, I assume that he is consulting a lawyer. He can then tell him, if he is sick and has no adapted treatment in the country of origin, to simply go for that medical regularization. If an asylum application is effectively in progress, he may still refrain from it, so that the two do not necessarily run parallel or one after the other.

First of all, I will not say anything about the situation of the municipalities. Mr. Somers has expressed this perfectly as Mayor of Mechelen.

Ms. Smeyers made a good proposal in the committee, namely to send the systematic transmission of the decision sent to foreigners, also to the municipalities, as soon as the municipality has that foreigner on its territory. In this way, the municipality knows the statute and the consequences of the procedures that would be submitted by the foreigner. That is a good proposal. This needs to be administered. It is a step in the right direction.

Second, the government in ongoing affairs has made the choice to remain in the current legal framework; 9ter is currently considered a subsidiary protection. This is confirmed by the Constitutional Court. We remain within this legal framework.

This is the direction chosen by Minister Dewael when he changed the 9ter procedure. We remained within that legal framework. Is this good or is it bad? I think this is the best framework. We can discuss this for a long time, but the fact is that we have remained in that framework.

In this context, we have eliminated the abuses. That was the purpose of that text.

Regarding the cumulative in the procedure, Mrs. Smeyers, I absolutely disagree with you. I totally agree with Mr. Somers. I will give an example. Someone comes here and he makes an asylum application. He thinks he really needs protection. It may be. There are some such. During the procedure, the person becomes seriously ill. That person may no longer be cured in his country of origin. According to your proposal, that person should wait until the end of the asylum procedure before he can initiate a new procedure. That person then submits an asylum application. During this procedure, he will be admitted. If he gets a negative decision, he can start a new procedure, with a new reception moment. This means that the reception periods are also cumulated. Therefore, I absolutely disagree with your proposal.

In that case, could one also withdraw from the asylum procedure and start the procedure for medical regularization?

But no, and you know why. Because the consequences of the two procedures are different. An asylum procedure recognizes a person as a refugee, with a status that is more positive than the status of subsidiary protection or Article 9ter. It is not limited in time. If a person is recognised as a refugee under Article 9ter, the status must be renewed annually. After five years, you get an unlimited status. It is also necessary to be able to continue to prove the disease. These are not the same situations.

I prefer someone who submits everything at the same time. Thus, all our asylum and foreign authorities can decide everything at the same time. I find that more correct than forcing the cumul and the cumul of the reception. Our intention is to keep the procedure as short as possible and the duration of the reception as short as possible. With your proposal, we do exactly the opposite. The reception will be longer and can be accumulated. Therefore, I absolutely disagree with your proposal.

As regards the question of Ms. Genot, I would say that even during the period preceding the end of the eligibility, those persons can benefit from urgent medical assistance, whether their application is admissible or not. I acknowledge that the intention of this procedure is to make acceptance impossible before the admissibility phase. This is also what creates the success of the 9ter, we have to be clear. If the person is in an urgent medical situation, they can still benefit from urgent medical assistance.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind in two words the reason for this text amendment submitted by the Government in ordinary affairs. We realized that there was an abuse of the 9ter for the moment. We have tightened the conditions of access for a number of other procedures, whether 9bis after regularization on the basis of individual files, asylum procedures which are also faster, or even the removal, the number of which has been much higher since 2011. The 9ter was the entrance door and was very successful because as soon as you entered a 9ter request, you were welcomed. This means that there were a lot of files entered but also a significant additional burden for the reception.

We wanted to remove the abusive files from all these procedures by recreating a first phase of admissibility. Before a person is accepted, they must enter a standard form, i.e. a standard medical certificate. The recent character of this certificate is a new condition for admissibility. We also maintain the condition of identity and the disease invoked must be a serious disease. Some people have introduced 9ter for an incarnate nail or for flu.

It is true that a flu state can represent a fairly significant health problem, but let’s recognize that there was clearly abuse. All of these cases can be declared unacceptable. This is the progress of this case.

Then, when the file is admissible, requests can also be declared without subject if the person has received an indefinite status on another basis or if he did not cooperate in the procedure and did not attend the calls. To reflect on the words of mr. Somers, we find ourselves in the phase at the bottom, where the file is declared without object, rather than in that of admissibility as such.

We wanted to focus on individuals who really need a status because they are sick.

Yes, I am proud!

I am proud that in our country there can be granted residence to people who are really sick. It is not human to remove people when they are sick. But abuse of our procedure cannot be accepted either. This text is for a more efficient Article 9ter, a Article 9ter with fewer abuses, aimed at the person who really needs protection, who is really sick and whom we should not expel.

This is the purpose of this text: to eliminate abuse and ensure that this Article 9ter provides real protection to persons who prove that they are truly sick and are therefore irreplaceable.