REFUGEE STATUS OR SUBSIDIARY PROTECTION?
We must be very clear about what differentiates these two concepts. To do so, we must take into account Articles 3 and 4 of Law 12/2009, of October 30, regulating the right to asylum and subsidiary protection. Thus:
As established in Article 3, refugee status: “is recognized for any person who, due to well-founded fears of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinions, membership in a particular social group, gender, or sexual orientation, is outside the country of their nationality and cannot or, because of such fears, does not want to avail themselves of the protection of that country, or for a stateless person who, lacking nationality and being outside the country where they previously had their habitual residence, for the same reasons cannot or, because of such fears, does not want to return to it, and is not subject to any of the grounds for exclusion in Article 8 or the grounds for denial or revocation in Article 9.”
On the other hand, Article 4 establishes that subsidiary protection shall be granted: “to persons from other countries and to stateless persons who, while not meeting the requirements to obtain asylum or refugee status, but regarding whom there are well-founded grounds to believe that if they returned to their country of origin in the case of nationals, or to that of their previous habitual residence in the case of stateless persons, they would face a real risk of suffering any of the serious harms provided for in Article 10 of this Law, and who cannot or, because of such risk, do not want to avail themselves of the protection of the country in question, provided that none of the circumstances mentioned in Articles 11 and 12 of this Law apply.”
PARTICULAR CASES. VENEZUELAN NATIONALS WHOSE APPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION HAVE BEEN DENIED.
Given the economic, social, and especially political situation that Venezuelan compatriots are going through, the Inter-Ministerial Commission for Asylum and Refuge (CIAR) has proposed the granting of a temporary residence authorization for humanitarian reasons of international protection for a duration of one year, renewable, to Venezuelan nationals whose applications for international protection have been denied, by going directly to police stations after obtaining a prior appointment at the Electronic Headquarters of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function.
