Refugee Act Amendment Bill Brings Back Hostility Toward Refugees
Il Lee (Advocates for Public Interest Law) [Now K-Deportation?] Analysis of the Revision of the Refugee Act ① Background This article is a translation of the news article published in OhmyNews.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic on December 28, 2020, the Ministry of Justice, which was at the center of the heated debate over the prosecutor office’s reform issue, announced an amendment bill. The bill that went unnoticed by the public was a revision of the Refugee Act, that was far from the interests of most citizens.
▲ Press release from the Ministry of Justice – Legislation announcing the partial revision of the Refugee Act
Through the years, South Korea’s refugee policy has been practically operating as a “refugee refusal policy”. It has largely prevented refugees from coming to Korea as much as possible, reviewed their applications from a largely conservative perspective, and thus evaluated arriving refugees as people who are not refugees. The revision of the Refugee Act is a tantamount bill that officializes this “refugee refusal” policy as a law. Concerned about the backlash it may face, the MOJ explained in its press release as if the bill’s purpose is to simultaneously ensure fairness and efficiency in the refugee application process. The MOJ also included some provisions such as “strengthened translation and interpretation” that appear to ensure refugee rights to block former criticisms on its poor screening process and so-called “fabricated refugee interview script” issue that affected thousands of applicants.
However, the hidden core of the amendment is clear. The first is the decision regarding “refugee applications with unfounded grounds”. The second is the “decision on ineligible claim”, and the third is the “supplementary provision”. This is made clear by the bill’s introduction of negative precedents abroad such as “accelerated procedures” and “eligibility screening”.
Even though applicants cannot be recognized as refugees without legal assistance in the current system, refugee re-applicants will now only be reviewed by paper as ineligible claims and then ordered to leave the country. Through the key supplementary provision, all refugees currently being screened will also be subject to the new system by de facto retroactive legislation.
It is hard to imagine how many refugees will be deported unjustly. Such a policy is bound to become known in the international community in no time. Is the Ministry of Justice now trying to brand “K-Deportation” in addition to “K-pop” and “K-Disease Prevention”?
What meaning does the 2011 Refugee Act hold?
The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines who refugees are and what rights they have. It largely concentrates on the rightful point that governments will not forcibly send refugees back to a country where they will be persecuted. Adopting the Refugee Convention is also a nation’s declaration that it will exercise its authority and responsibility as a legitimate member of the international community.
After the 1987 democratic movement, the South Korean government, wanting to declare its escape from the shadow of military dictatorship, joined the International Convention on Human Rights (the so-called Freedom and Social Rights) in 1990 and the United Nations in 1991. And the very next year, it entered the international community by ratifying the Refugee Convention in 1992.
Thus, Korea introduced its refugee system as a method to bring Korea into the international community rather than from its intention to protect refugees. The system’s foundation was not for refugees. Naturally, the refugee system that did not operate well met a turning point when a series of lawmakers submitted a bill in the form of a legislation after they found out that refugees from other countries besides North Korean defectors were residing in South Korea.
In a tug-of-war with the Ministry of Justice which is in charge of refugee-related affairs, the Refugee Act was born in 2011. When South Korea, which introduced its refugee system belatedly, attempted to put the refugee system on full track by enacting the Refugee Act, the Asian region expressed high expectations for Korea’s big step in defending human rights.
▲ Korean Refugee Rights Network Press Conference at the National Assembly’s Eui-jeong Office on World Refugee Day 2020
The refugee system is based on limiting the discretion of domestic law on immigration control to the non-refoulement principle in international law. In other words, it limits human rights standards to “the authorities’ freedom to refuse rather than welcome refugees”.
Korea’s immigration policy fundamentally views foreigners as resources to be used or potential offenders, discriminates foreigners from “citizens”, and establishes a hierarchy among them by evaluating them as “useful” and “useless” foreigners. However, the refugee policy requires the non-refoulement of refugees to countries of persecution based on the universality of human rights. Thus, the two policies clash, resulting in the refugee policy constraining immigration policies.
Therefore, the Refugee Convention restricted deportation. The 2011 Refugee Act attempted to prevent “demonstrative interviews” by guaranteeing procedural rights to ensure some fairness. It tried to block the Korean government from “making it hard to live” for refugees so that they can “voluntarily leave” by granting the right to employment and other rights during their application procedures on limited grounds. Although there are many shortcomings, the Refugee Act is ultimately a precious law and the only tool against unfair administrative power.
However, even after the Refugee Act was established, it was not followed well. The quality of refugee interviews did not rise compared to the increased number of refugee applicants, as refugee recognition rates plunged, the approval process time extended, and the so-called “fabricated refugee interview script” case broke out. In the end, the Korean government used its refugee law as if it were the government and lawmakers’ achievement, just like it used the Refugee Convention as a means to “enter the international community” in the past. Stating that “South Korea is the first country in Asia to enact an independent domestic law to implement the Refugee Convention,” the Korean government has been using the Refugee Act as a shield against the international community’s human rights demands.
Although South Korea has a proud history of the “democratic movement”, the Korean government does not have a history of actively protecting minority rights to expression and human rights. Korea does not provide funds for human rights in the international community compared to its rapid development.
Korea’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) fund is only about a fifth of that of its neighboring country, Japan. In terms of gross domestic product, Korea ranks 27th out of 30 countries in the OECD Development Assistance Committee as of 2017. In order to hide its operations summarized by “extremely low refugee recognition rate” and “lack of refugee settlement support”, the Korean government has promoted its “enactment of the first domestic refugee law in Asia” for the ninth year.
The flow of Yemeni refugees makes a chance for revising the conservative refugee law
▲ Changes in refugee application, recognition, and disapproval by year [2020 NANCEN statistics collection page 10]
As the refugee system came on track, the number of refugee applicants in Korea continued to increase. The first cause was the permanence of international conflict such as the wars in Syria and Yemen, and the second cause was the increased accessibility of information on the refugee system that was previously unknown.
However, the Ministry of Justice was not pleased with the increased number of refugees and understood applicants as not being refugees, as fatigue and negative views against refugees piled up among the extremely understaffed officers in charge of refugee interviews. As a result, they gave Syrian and Yemeni refuge only humanitarian status that doesn’t allow rights of family reunification, enacted an additional refugee entry ban as a first measure against arriving Yemeni refugees, and accounted for the first significant drop in the total number of refugee recognition in 2018. It was difficult to expect the Ministry of Justice, that already administered the management, deportation, and detention of foreigners, to show a “willingness to actively protect” refugees in addition to their obligatory duties.
The “pillar” established by the Refugee Act was neutralized by administrative practices and guidelines, and its “shortcomings” were undoubtedly revealed. The law was created, but only about 100 people were protected as refugees each year. Refugee recognition rates fell devastatingly. Refugees who looked to South Korea’s international status and believed that it was an advocate of human rights during their urgent escape were deported among the government’s “narrow recognition standards”, neglected by its message to “survive on your own”, and pushed away to a third country.
In 2018, 484 Yemeni refugees arrived on Jeju Island to avoid war and persecution. They were a small number compared to the number of refugees who were already in Korea, but the government, which should have not only protected refugees but also explained their circumstance to the public with a thoughtful message, made a bad move as the majority of Korean citizens were left with a lasting impression asking, “Are there refugees in Korea too?”.
The Ministry of Justice’s first move was to “block the possibility of additional Yemeni refugees arriving” and “not allow Yemeni refugees to leave Jeju Island”. It heightened the citizens’ natural unfamiliarity and guarded views against refugees by sending a message that said, “That’s right, refugees can be dangerous and must be controlled”. Since then, an explosion of hatred toward refugees resulted in more than 700,000 people petitioning the government to deport the Yemeni refugees.
▲ The Minister of Justice responds to the petition to abolish the Refugee Act at the time
In response to the petition, the Minister of Justice at the time said, “We will start to revise the refugee system so that it would not be abused. We will conduct a strict review of the refugees. The safety of Korean citizens is our top priority”. Even though Yemeni refugees escaping civil war zones are clearly recognized by the international community as refugees who need protection and not “abusers of the system”, the Minister stated that they will “strictly review” the applications or “revise the law to prevent abuse” out of the blue, branding refugees as those who are “threatening the safety of the people”.
In time, this response is evaluated as a further retreat from the refugee system to embrace the sentiments of refugee hatred and demands expressed by some people. Two years later, as the heated year of 2018 was forgotten and refugees live in every corner of the country, the Minister of Justice’s past remarks were finally brought to the surface by this latest amendment bill in late 2020.
Is the Korean government in 2021 a country that deports refugees?
The National Security Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Anti-Discrimination Act, the issue of conscientious refusal of military service, abortion, the elimination of the disability rating system and obligated support standards, and LGBTQ rights are all human rights agendas that the current government was expected to actively pursue for a long time. The integration of Korean society and issues related to the human rights of migrants and refugees in order to create a society free from discrimination and hate were also important assignments for improvement.
But on the contrary, most of these agendas were left for “later”, and activists are concerned that issues related to the human rights of migrants and refugees are retreating with the current government. Moreover, a bill based on the sentiment of “refugee hate” that occurred in 2018 was submitted to retreat the refugee law, that has never been revised in retrogression since its enactment in 2011. Why is this happening in the current government that declared to become a government that defends human rights?
The important role of policies and the system is to check the unjust authority and freedom of administrative authorities and to make administrative and judicial procedures that allow one to argue for oneself when authorities say “I see, you are guilty”. The revision of the Refugee Act allows administrative authorities to say “I see you are not a refugee” in first sight. Indeed, it is questionable why the Korean government is pushing for a retreat, rather than proceeding to put a brake on the administrative authorities’ unjust freedom.
For 9 years, the Korean government has introduced the refugee law to the international community as its big achievement. Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been watching the performance of Korea’s refugee system. What is the Korean government saying to the countries that have attempted to develop their refugee system based on the Korean model? If the amendment bill to retreat the refugee law is passed as it is, the Korean government is ultimately proclaiming “K-Deportation” to the international community.
▲ Police line in front of the 2018 REFUGEE WELCOME cultural festival
