Commentary on provisions of the Act Section 59: Inadmissibility of certain asylum and human rights claims
This section amends section 80A of the 2002 Act which provides that asylum claims (that is a claim by a person that to remove them from the UK would breach the UK’s obligations under the Refugee Convention) from EU nationals must generally be declared inadmissible to the UK’s asylum system. Inadmissibility procedures allow a State to declare an asylum claim "inadmissible" when the claim is made by nationals of countries which are deemed safe (section 80A(5) provides a non-exhaustive list of exceptional circumstances), and individuals can be returned to their country of nationality.
	Subsection (2) amends section 80A such that the inadmissibility provisions apply to human rights claims (that is, a claim by a person that to remove them from the UK would be unlawful under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 which provides that a public authority must not act contrary to the ECHR) as well as asylum claims. Subsection (4) makes a consequential change to the heading of Part 4A of the 2002 Act.
	Subsection (3) inserts new section 80AA into the 2002 Act. New section 80AA(1) sets out a list of safe States for the purposes of section 80A. Section 80A currently applies to nationals of EU member States, the list set out in new section 80AA(1) additionally includes Albania, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. New section 80AA(2) confers a power, by regulations, to amend the list of States in new section 80AA(1). New section 80AA(3) and (4) set out the test that must be met before a State can be added to the list of safe States. Regulations adding to the list of safe States (or both adding States to and removing States from the list) are subject to the draft affirmative resolution procedure, while regulations which only remove States from the list are subject to the negative resolution procedure (new section 80AA(6) and (7)).