Sjudin, who has been overseeing the new citizenship processing guidelines, said that case handlers at the agency would begin handling cases in order of application from October, after spending the preceding months finished processing existing cases assigned to them under the former system.
The agency's aim is then to decide on the roughly 11,390 cases where applicants have been waiting for more than four years by the end of 2025.
"We think that we are in a strong position to be able to handle the majority of cases that are four years older or older this year," she told The Local in an interview. "That's if nothing changes - there could suddenly be a large number of 'requests to conclude' approved by the court which could change the situation. But as things are now, it looks positive."
The agency in May announced a radical overhaul of how citizenship applications are handled in response to criticism from Sweden's National Audit Office of ‘unreasonably’ long processing times which allow thousands of applications to 'lie dormant', leaving some applicants waiting for five years or more without even being assigned a case officer.
Sjudin said that some 18,400 people have been waiting more than three years for their case to be handled, 5,200 had been waiting more than five years, and 1,130 had been waiting more than six years, a situation she said had caused frustration internally as well as among applicants.
"We also think this is irksome. We want it to be fair and transparent. Obviously those who have applied first should get a decision first. That's nothing more than fair."
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The long waits were partly the result of a decision taken to prioritise so-called 'complete' cases which could be handled simply as the agency struggled with the aftermath of the 2015 refugee wave, which led to a surge in citizenship applications from 2019. The agency decided to effectively sideline more complex cases where some of the paperwork was missing.
Under the new system, 'complete' cases will no longer have an advantage. This means that anyone who applies for citizenship today, or who has applied more recently, and has not already been assigned a case officer, risks having to wait until the entire backlog of older cases is cleared before their case is handled.
"Anyone who already has a caseworker will continue to have their case handled. We will not remove them. But when we hand out new cases we will distribute them according to the new system. All cases are going to be handled in order of application, so if you submit an application today, you have no chance of getting a decision in the near future, we will handle the oldest ones first."
Sjudin said the exceptions would be cases which were "obviously unsupported", where applications could be rejected without much processing, and cases where a "request to conclude" has been upheld by a court.
According to Swedish administrative law, if an applicant has been waiting for at least six months for a decision, they can submit a request to have their case concluded, which means the agency must decide it as quickly as possible.
Sjudin said that the agency would have two parallel streams of cases, standard ones and those with a request to conclude, with both streams handled strictly in order of application.
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