In 2024 and early 2025, the Parliamentary Ombudsman received several complaints concerning the processing of applications for international protection submitted by Russian asylum seekers. The most important criticism in the complaints concerned exceeding the absolute maximum processing time of 21 months laid down in the Aliens Act.

Deputy-Ombudsman Mikko Sarja separately investigated four complaints and also requested that the Ministry of the Interior and the Finnish Immigration Service provide a more general report on the situation in the processing of matters concerning international protection and which measures they intended to take with regard to the situation with processing times. 

In the matters that resulted in the Deputy-Ombudsman's criticism, the processing times had been at least 24–28 months from when the applications had been submitted to the Finnish Immigration Service. The Deputy-Ombudsman reprimanded the agency for unlawful conduct. However, the cases in which the applications had been returned to the Finnish Immigration Service from administrative courts did not lead to any measures.

The Finnish Immigration Service already took several measures to shorten the processing times in 2024, and the Ministry of the Interior monitors the implementation of the processing time targets in its monthly performance monitoring meetings as well as yearly and half-yearly in connection with the performance target negotiations. 

According to the Deputy-Ombudsman, in spite of the positive aspects stated above, the report received and the observations made on the basis of individual complaints supported the conclusion that the public authorities have not been able to sufficiently secure the requirement of lawful processing in the processing of applications for international protection. The Deputy-Ombudsman therefore decided to further monitor how the measures taken by the Finnish Immigration Service affect the processing times of applications and has requested that the Ministry for the Interior notify him of the matter by the end of the year.

The Deputy-Ombudsman’s decision no 3806/2025 has been published (in Finnish) on the website www.oikeusasiamies.fi.