The Expert Forum , format: Article, area: Authority

What is the Expert Forum on Asylum and Migration?

This body was set up in 2000 at the Information Centre for Asylum and Migration (IZAM) of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in Nuremberg. It is made up of people who have expert knowledge of migration- and asylum-related issues. They include representatives of the Federal Länder, from the legal profession, from the courts, from the UNHCR and from various NGOs and institutes, as well as Professors from a variety of different disciplines. The Expert Forum is to support the Federal Office in its analytical and documentation-related tasks, in particular by providing advice and making recommendations concerning quality standards and work foci. This primarily relates to the granting of asylum, as well as to refugee protection and migration.

The dialogue with external experts serves to create transparency when it comes to the foundation on which decisions are based, and is to increase the variety of the documentation in order to make it more objective, as well as to ensure that quality standards are adhered to on a sustainable basis. In addition, the acceptance and comparability of the documented material are to be improved. At the same time, the work done by the Forum is to ensure that no reservations exist when it comes to giving the administrative courts access to the Federal Office's documentation when they have to rule on any disputes that may arise with regard to asylum.

The tasks to be performed by the Expert Forum are therefore as follows:

• to verify the existing documentation, and to identify weaknesses and any room for improvement,
• to provide advice on core content and make recommentations, as well as
• to advise the IZAM with regard to guidelines on the quality and objectivity of the databases and analyses (quality standards).