Promptness or Substantive Accuracy? The Duty to Investigate in Swedish Asylum Cases after the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum

Abstract

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum combines shorter procedural time limits with an explicit requirement for an adequate, complete and individual examination. This article examines how this duality affects the duty of investigation of the Swedish Migration Agency and the migration courts. The analysis is based on Swedish general administrative law, the Asylum Procedure Regulation, the Qualification Regulation, and case law from the Migration Court of Appeal, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. It argues that promptness and substantive accuracy should not be treated as two equivalent interests that may be freely balanced against each other. In asylum cases, a legally sufficient level of investigation must first be achieved; only thereafter may the procedure be optimised in terms of time. The Pact changes the pace of proceedings and the use of accelerated procedures, but it does not lower the requirements concerning up-to-date country-of-origin information, individual assessment of evidence, identification of vulnerability or access to an effective remedy. To make this framework practically manageable, the article proposes a risk-adapted investigation test. The test focuses on the consequences of the decision, information asymmetry, remaining decisive uncertainty, the need for special procedural guarantees and the possibility of correcting an error through judicial review. The model is not a new legal rule but an analytical and documentation tool. It may help concentrate resources on uncertainties that can actually affect the outcome and ensure that a case leaves an accelerated track when a sufficiently reliable examination cannot be completed within its time frame.