Recognising refugees 53 FMR 65 November 2020 www.fmreview.org/recognising-refugees Group approach: The activation and scope to facilitate processing of cases. Finally, of the Order were designed on the basis of the Portuguese model demonstrates that an identified group of similarly situated solutions can be found within the existing persons, thereby allowing for a flexible and asylum system, rather than requiring the immediate response to a situation in which development of new procedures or statuses. individual processing was impractical and Angela Moore
[email protected] ultimately impossible given the unusual Senior Protection Officer, Afghanistan circumstances. Beyond the application of the cut-off date to define the group, no further Periklis Kortsaris
[email protected] distinctions were made in terms of status. Head of RSD Section, Division of International Protection Reinforcing the asylum procedure: Rather UNHCR www.unhcr.org than create a new status or parallel structure, The authors would like to thank in particular the Order leveraged existing systems to Filipe Doutel, Advocacy and Legal Officer of the benefit a broader cross-section of the asylum- Jesuit Refugee Service-Portugal, Mónica Farinha, seeking population. This had the advantage of President of the Portuguese Refugee Council, reducing the extent to which new definitions and Marina Portugal, Head of Asylum and and rights had to be established, while Refugees Department, SEF, for their support in promising to permit seamless transition drafting this article. The views expressed here back to the pre-existing system upon the are the authors’ own and do not necessarily eventual relaxation of emergency measures. represent those of UNHCR.