STOISITS: SUBSIDIARY PROTECTION NOT FOLLOWED BY RESIDENCE TITLE

Mr. K., a Kosovar, turned to the Ombudsman Board with the following problem: the Federal Asylum Office closed the extension of Mr. K.'s subsidiary protection while declaring him ineligible for extradition. Several months later Mr. K. and his family were granted permanent residency. Initially the application for family assistance payments was denied due to the lack of a valid residence title. The Ombudsman Board was able to attain the reimbursement of the family assistance payments; all except for one month.

The one-month-gap came to be due to the differing dates between the end of subsidiary protection and the issuance of the residence title. Apart from the fact that during this time family assistance had not been paid, a link between the differing residence titles was not accepted and continued legal residence thus denied.

Due to the high degree of integration the concerned person is legally entitled to a residence title if the Federal Asylum Office decrees that in his case extradition is ineligible. It is, however, legally not clear at what point the residence title is supposed to be issued. By issuing a residence title which is chronologically linked to subsidiary protection, residence authorities would provide continuous residence entitlements for concerned subjects - a continuation which is of great importance with regard to future procedures connected to receiving citizenship.

Hence, the Ombudsman Board suggested issuing residence titles subsequently to subsidiary protection. However, the Federal Ministry denied this suggestion: humanitarian right of residence shall not serve the enablement of a continuous title and is constitutive exclusively of the applied for residence title.

The responsible Ombudswoman regrets the fact that the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs does not pick up on a legally valid option and prefers to operate in a way which is disadvantageous for the persons concerned.