Finland¶
The Finnish case shows a right made conditional on the executive’s reading of another state’s intentions. The adversary is real, and the law answers it by letting the government suspend asylum at the border, with each renewal keeping the power in place while it goes unused. The trigger is a judgement about foreign intent, made by the executive before any court has looked at it.
The clerk’s briefs¶
From the clerks, for the Patrician’s eyes
Not urgent, unless the switch is thrown. People arriving at that stretch of border could then not apply for asylum, and those already there would be removed without delay, including any who are genuinely fleeing. A later government with a looser idea of foreign hands could throw it more readily, and a neighbour able to stage one could provoke it. If the law lapses unused, the precedent lapses with it.
June 2025: Extended unused¶
The government proposed extending the border law until 31 December 2026, noting that “so far, the Border Security Act has not been applied” and describing it as “the last resort to control the situation”. The clerks note that an emergency power can be renewed without ever being used, and that each renewal makes it more ordinary.
July 2024: The border law¶
In July 2024 Finland enacted the Act on Temporary Measures to Combat Instrumentalised Migration. It lets the government, after cooperating with the President, restrict the reception of asylum applications in a limited area of the border for a month at a time, on “highly exceptional and pressing reasons” and knowledge or a justified suspicion that a foreign state is trying to influence Finland in a way that seriously threatens its sovereignty. Migrants who have already entered the area would be removed without delay. The President approved it on 16 July. The clerks note that the foreign state in question is not hypothetical, and that the law suspends a right at the border rather than in a court.