The struggle to be recognised as a refugee.
Alfred Ngoyi Wa Mwanza left the DRC in 2002 to seek protection in Switzerland following persecution in his homeland. A month after his hearing by the Federal Office for Refugees ODR (now SEM), he received a decision of dismissal without consideration. He then had 24 hours to file an appeal with the former Swiss Asylum Appeals Commission (CRA). Without the means to hire a private lawyer and without the support of the free legal advice offices, which had refused his application because they considered that an appeal had little chance of success, he decided to draft his appeal to the former Asylum Appeals Commission (CRA) himself, basing it on the legal texts on the websites of the former ODR and the former CRA. He first obtained a restoration of the suspensive effect and then a re-examination of his application. In 2008, after a long and difficult procedure, the ODM finally recognised his status as a refugee and granted him refugee status under the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951.
BUCOFRAS and training in Switzerland
Alfred Ngoyi Wa Mwanza founded the Bureau de Conseil pour les Africains francophones de la Suisse (BUCOFRAS) in 2008. Based in Zurich, the organisation was first involved in assisting Africans based in German-speaking Switzerland with issues relating to integration in Switzerland, before moving into the legal field.
Alfred Ngoyi Wa Mwanza obtained a certificate in human rights from Geneva’s Collège Universitaire Henry-Dunant in 2009 and trained in social and cultural project management at Geneva’s ESM from 2009 to 2010.
Having trained as an economist in his native DRC, he enrolled at the University of Fribourg in 2011, where he obtained a Master of Arts in Legal Studies in 2013. With this degree in Swiss law, he took up the position of legal assistant at the BUCOFRAS organisation, which has become a fully-fledged legal practice under the additional name of ‘Legal advice for foreigners’, targeting clients of all origins throughout Switzerland. He will hold this position until the association’s dissolution in 2024.
A Master of Arts in Legal Studies degree is not sufficient to qualify for the Swiss legal professions of lawyer, judge, magistrate, court clerk and notary. That is why Alfred Ngoyi Wa Mwanza enrolled at the law faculty of the University of Neuchâtel, where he obtained a Bachelor of Law degree in 2017, and re-enrolled at the law faculty of the University of Fribourg, where he obtained a Master of Law degree with two distinctions: bilingual (French and German and European law). He has been writing his doctoral thesis on asylum procedure at the University of Neuchâtel since 2022.
SWISS IMMIGRATION LAW OFFICE-SILO
Hohlstrasse 192, 8004 Zürich (1st floor)
Phone : 043 243 94 69 | Email : info@silo-world.ch