ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the legal framework for admitting asylum seekers and providing them with necessary assistance, as well as providing protection to recognised refugees. The overview covers the decade 2011–2021 and aims to present the stable elements of the asylum system and explains important changes introduced in this period. The presentation of the legal framework is preceded by a mapping of the institutional actors involved in implementing asylum policy as widely understood in Poland. The overview of the domestic legislation is structured along the course of applying for asylum from the perspective of forced migrants. First, we describe the provisions related to accessing the asylum procedure (at the border and within the territory of Poland), second we present the rules of processing asylum claims, and finally we reflect on the provisions determining the possible outcomes of the asylum procedure, that is, granting international protection or denying it. Special attention was also given to legislation referring to selected spheres of forced migrants’ adaptation, that is, access to the labour market, education, housing, and healthcare, which aims to offer the legal context of the empirical analysis presented in other chapters of the book.
