The problem with this law is that it calls into question the whole idea of the rule of law. It allows the Finnish government to declare that there is a threat at the border of a “hybrid invasion”.
This declaration can be made based on secret security information the government may claim to have and no court can examine and rule on the validity of the information.
The declaration of a hybrid invasion will allow the border authorities to turn away anyone and everyone no matter what danger they are facing. This can include both foreigners and Finnish citizens as the authorities have emergency powers to forgo examination of documents and identities. In fact as Minister Mari Rantanen has stated, the persons crossing the border may not even know themselves that they are involved in a hybrid invasion. So there is no real way of knowing who the government is “pushing back” at the border or why or what will happen to them outside Finland. In fact, if there are people the government does not like, the government now has the powers to expel, beat up or even shoot dead persons they do not like without legal accountability. All they have to do is wait until these unlikeable people are at a border point and then enact this new so-called law which can be done in very short order.
“Pushbacks” carried out under this law are not appealable or open to judicial review.
Backers of the law argue that it will only be applied in rare and unusual situations.
They said the same about the Valtalaki when it was adopted. It was enacted for the first time during the Corona epidemic to close off Uusimaa from the rest of the country.
The problem is that when such laws for rare powers are adopted, the government soon finds ways to use them to extend their power, The Valtalaki was challenged in Parliament and eventually ended by a vote by MPs. The “Pushback Law” is special in that it has no provision for parliamentary review.
The EU human rights court may yet weigh in on the law but there are forces at work to also erode the rule of law in the EU with a similar law EU wide. And you thought the rule of law was sometning Finland champions in the world?
*Ahti Tolavanen is a regular Migrant Tales contributor and a member of the editorial board.