Limits on Criminal Liability for Persons Who Have Illegally Crossed the State Border

The article examines the issues of interpretation and application of Article 31 of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 28 July 1951 (Refugee Convention), concerning the circumstances under which asylum seekers should be exempted from criminal liability. Firstly, the author examines how Lithuania and other states assess situations in which an asylum seeker enters another country by using forged or false documents. It is concluded that this matter is not properly regulated in Lithuanian criminal law, which results in the issue having to be resolved by the courts through the application of the existing legislation. The author subsequently examines the condition of “without delay” for the application of Article 31 of the Convention, outlining its possible interpretative meanings and illustrating them with examples of its application. Having assessed the already very different legal regulations in various countries and the extremely different assessments of similar situations in court practice, the article argues that an internationally agreed minimum time frame falling within the scope of “without delay” should be established, as no such standard currently exists. Finally, the article examines the remaining conditions for immunity from criminal liability, specifically the criteria for determining whether an asylum seeker has “come directly.” When assessing this requirement, the reasons and motives for an individual’s stay in a transit country must be considered, as well as the factors that prompted the decision to travel to a particular state and the duration of the journey and time spent in transit states.