Lawyers who focus on asylum and refugees should not be allowed to use freedom of information legislation to find out about individual success stories, Christian Democrat MP Ad Koppejan says in Thursday’s Trouw.

The immigration minister has discretionary powers to grant residence to individual asylum seekers.
But if lawyers are able to find out more about those cases, they can use the reasoning to argue for their own clients and this would set a precedent, Koppejan says.
‘Ministers should use their discretionary powers far more but don’t because lawyers can use freedom of information laws (wob) to understand their reasoning,’ Koppejan said.
‘We want this stopped, which would give the minister more room to follow his heart.’
Mauro
Koppejan, one of two CDA MPs who campaigned in favour of granting a residency permit to the Angolan youth Mauro Manuel but voted in line with party policy, also said he is convinced the boy will be able to stay in the country permanently.
Once he has a student visa, more opportunities will be open, Koppejan said. ‘He could become a highly-skilled knowledge migrant or by that time there may be a structural solution to cases such as his.’
Mauro is 18 and threatened with deportation even though he has lived in the Netherlands with the same foster family since he was nine.