Administration without Frontiers? European Migration Law: Rights of Migrants in the Slovak Republic

Administration without Frontiers?
European Migration Law

Rights of Migrants in the Slovak Republic - 2008

Branislav Fridrich

Doc. JUDr. PhD. - Comenius University Bratislava, Faculty of Law, Depart­ment of Constitutional Law

Lucia Mokrá

JUDr. PhDr. PhD. - Comenius University Bratislava, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Institute of European Studies and International Relations

 The Slovak Republic has a crucial role in the area of controlling the East external border of the European Union with Ukraine. It is closely connected with the pro­tection of the rights of migrants, coming from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Those persons previously used the territory of the Slovak Republic mainly for tran­sit, but at the moment Slovakia is very attractive because of its membership of the European Union as well as of the Schengen Area. These memberships entailed new obligations for the amendment of the existing legal order which, more or less, was a successful process - all directives were successfully transposed and regula­tions are directly applicable in the Slovak Republic. In practice, however, Slovakia is one of the countries with the most rigorous system of asylum proceedings, but it is in the competence of each EU Member State to define the individual conditions for migrants and asylum seekers based on the Community legislation in force. However, we have to emphasise that the constitutional and legal regulation of mi­grants’ and asylum seekers’ rights is fully guaranteed without any discrimination and that the State coordinates the practical integration of this people in cooperation with other authorities and non-governmental organisations.