Reports assessing public safety in countries where asylum seekers come from are to be kept secret from now on, foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp has told parliament.

“There is no legal obligation to make these reports publicly available and the decision is in line with the coalition agreement, which state that such reports will, in principle, no longer be made public,” Veldkamp said in a short note to MPs.

The change has already come into effect and recent reports on Eritrea and Yemen have not been published.

The reports, known as ambtsberichten, are used by IND immigration service and the courts to determine whether people can be safely returned to their home countries. A new report on Syria is expected soon, and could affect the status of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees currently in the Netherlands.

The decision has prompted fierce criticism from legal experts and refugee support groups, who say it undermines the rule of law.

Migration law professor Thomas Spijkerboer called the move “staggering”. “I’ve been working in this field since 1986 and these reports have always been public. They are crucial in assessing whether people can be sent back to countries like Syria or Sudan, or whether LGBT people can return to places like Gambia,” he told broadcaster NOS.

Wil Eikelboom, chairman of the Dutch Association of Asylum Lawyers, said judges are unlikely to accept decisions based on information asylum seekers cannot see. “This turns asylum decisions into secret trials. I don’t think the courts will tolerate it,” he said.

“This kind of decision must be transparent,” said MP Kati Piri from the GroenLinks- PvdA alliance. “There are 70,000 Syrians in the Netherlands whose fate depends on that report. Parliament has a right to know what’s in it.”

NOS said journalists and campaign groups could still request publication under freedom of information legislation, and sources close to the cabinet told the broadcaster there is concern the policy may not survive legal challenges.

Syrian concerns