Korea’s Inoperative Refugee Recognition System: Recognition Only a Dream
Il Lee (Advocates for Public Interest Law)
[Now K-Deportation?] Analysis of the Revision of the Refugee Act ② Realities of the System This article is a translation of the news article published in OhmyNews – “You Won’t be Included in the 42”
For those seeking refuge in Korea and applying for refugee status and protection, the government of the Republic of Korea reviews their application and confirms their refugee status through the Refugee Recognition Procedure (RSD procedure). If this process functions well, refugees applying for refugee status to the Ministry of Justice will be able to quickly and fairly verify their status. On the other hand, if refugees are not granted refugee status despite their efforts, the process can be identified as inoperative.
The following is the reason for the proposal of the Refugee Act enacted in 2011 (Agenda No. 4927 in 2009). “Korea has not received enough refugees compared to other developed countries and has not been able to fulfill its responsibilities in the international community. Additionally, there are about 1,000 refugee applicants who have not yet received their first decision, and there are constant internal and external concerns regarding the process’ speed, transparency, and fairness.” The concerns regarding the refugee law at the time was a self-reflection of the “inoperative refugee recognition procedure”.
▲ Previous Refugees Division, Seoul Immigration and Foreign Office
What about the procedure after the Refugee Act was enacted in 2011? Has the procedure been improved according to the purpose of the law? The examples below are a simple reconstruction of actual cases I came across while legally assisting refugees.
“Refugee A, who has escaped political persecution, applied for refugee status at the airport but was left in the transit area under the statement that his claim was “not credible”. He endured the pressure of repatriation in starvation. He was not treated like a human being and received legal assistance by only chance. It took one year for him to finally enter the country. However, A has only become a refugee applicant now. He does not know when the refugee procedure will end.”
“At the refugee interview that took one year to set up, Refugee B submitted a court sentence that proved he would be punished as a political prisoner if he returned to his home country. The result was dismissal. It stated that the format of B’s sentences makes B’s claims difficult to believe. Due to the injustice, B tried to attempt at suicide, but the lawyer helped the Ministry of Justice to check his court sentence at the embassy. The court sentence was proved to be authentic. But no one apologized for the vague suspicion against B, and he was told he had to file a lawsuit anyway. They say that even one out of 100 people do not receive refugee status. No one believes his story and his documents. He has no choice but to endure his uncertain future by continuing simple labor.”
“Refugee C went for an interview, but when he tried to explain his story in detail, the officer stopped him. He was told to answer the questions only with a “Yes or No”. C didn’t know if the interpreter was accurately interpreting. Later, he met a lawyer and checked the interview record, and it was written that he said, “The reason I came here was to make money for economic purposes” and “There is no problem or risk if I return to my home country now.” C never said anything like this. If C goes back to his home country, the only thing waiting for C is torture, but C is now stigmatized as a fake refugee.”
“Refugee D was not recognized as a refugee. The reason was written in Korean, so D couldn’t know why. Because D heard that the interview record might not have be written correctly, D asked for a video record of the interview. But the officer said he couldn’t receive the video. When D shouted that it was his right to receive the video record of his interview, the officer told him that he would call the police. When D came out of the office and checked the contents of the interview record, D found out that the interviewer didn’t understand what his danger was. Feeling unfair, D appealed to refugee committee. It is said that more than 500 cases are reviewed a day. Would the committee members read his paper well?
“Refugee E eventually came to court. E couldn’t trust the Ministry of Justice and the Refugee Committee of Korea at all. E heard that winning the lawsuit was more difficult, but there was no other way. On the first day of the trial, the judge asked two things through an interpreter. “Do you have any more evidence?’ “If you want to say anything, say it”. After that he said, “I will make a court decision after 4 weeks.” E wanted to submit a sentence paper of punishment he had received in his home country, but the judge told him to submit it with a Korean translation. But would the judge research his country of origin information himself to review E’s case? E heard that so far, there has never been a case of a refugee winning a lawsuit without an attorney in Korea.”
Refugees betrayed by the Korean government in every procedure
▲ Gwacheon Government Complex where the Ministry of Justice is located
Currently, the refugee recognition process in Korea is not functioning as a procedure to recognize refugees. But what is even more frightening is the fact that those who are responsible are neglecting it even though it is not working at all. Can you be granted as a refugee if you seek refugee status in South Korea to escape political persecution? The answer is ‘almost never’.
The refugee recognition process begins with a foreigner submitting a ‘refugee application’ to the immigration office that has jurisdiction over his or her region. When the application is submitted, a refugee interview will be conducted with an interpreter after 6 months to a year. The results will be notified after 4 weeks to several months. This is the first screening.
What is the percentage of people identified as refugees in the first screening? According to the results received by NANCEN through the request for disclosure of information, 9286 people had completed the first screening as of 2019. Among them, 42 people were identified as refugees. This is about 0.4%. Recognizing refugee status at this stage is difficult even if legal aid is received by chance, and it is more difficult to be recognized alone. If there is not much evidence due to an urgent escape, the possibility of refugee recognition is almost nonexistent.
Paradoxically, the likelihood of refugee recognition is also low when refugees bring in a lot of evidence, because they are suspected of being fabricated. Cases other than the “typical grounds” of refugee persecution such as persecution based on gender, freedom of religion, and LGBTQ identity are not strictly considered as grounds for persecution.
RSD officers struggling with heavy work do not hold malicious intentions. The high demands for proof focused on “not being deceived by fake refugees” are only combined to the officers’ lack of understanding on refugee standards. You will not be included in the 42.
If you feel injustice, you can appeal to the refugee committee at the Ministry of Justice headquarters. Will the refugee committee be able to deal with your injustice then? The refugee committee members are made up of non-standing members. Public officials or civilian experts from different professions meet once every 1-2 months to decide whether to grant refugee status through a meeting.
However, there are too many cases. It is known that at each meeting, more than 500 cases are reviewed per day. Additionally, as in the first screening, the ‘immigration officials of the Ministry of Justice’ are in charge of arranging the deliberation data and conducting further investigations. Thus it is structurally impossible to expect that all objection materials will be closely reviewed by refugee committee members as a separate procedure from the first screening. According to the results of the requests for information disclosure above, only three people were recognized as refugees at this stage in 2019. It is almost impossible for you to be included in the 3 among thousands.
▲ Refugees returning home with heavy hearts after being interrogated at the Seoul Administrative Court
Then, you can also file a lawsuit to the court. However, there are not enough lawyers in Korea who can help refugees professionally, and it is difficult for refugees to know who they are. There is no public lawyer system for refugee cases, and almost all refugees are living below the minimum cost of living. Most refugee lawsuits do not have a lawyer. So, the probability of a refugee winning converges to 0%. There is no known case of a refugee winning a lawsuit in Korea on his or her own. It is inevitable.
In a refugee lawsuit, you have to first “reorganize your past experiences.” You have to “sort evidence to match experience.” Examples include photos, articles, judgments from home, and affidavits from friends. You have to prove “which human rights violations are taking place in your home country” with human rights reports. You have to refute the argument of the immigration office that doesn’t trust you. All of this should be submitted in Korean.
Any human rights violations in your home country cannot be confirmed by the court’s own authority but must be proved by the refugees themselves. Imagine this as an example. If you stand as a refugee in an Arabic-speaking court, can you do all this in Arabic alone? Doesn’t this system that places all the burden on refugees alone prove that the procedure is not working justly?
In the end, no matter how well the judge tries to review the case, it cannot be expected to win. It is meaningless to guarantee Korea’s three-trial system in this process. In 2019, five people won refugee status through lawsuits in court. All five are exceptional cases that miraculously received the professional assistance of lawyers. Thus, it is very unlikely that you will be included in the 5 out of thousands.
The Ministry of Justice now labels you as a “fake refugee”, “a person who abuses the refugee system to earn money” and orders you to leave. In addition, they say, ‘the refugee system is being abused because of people like you.”
You believed in the Korean government and thought, “they will carefully review my case well,” but in the end they did not. You believed in the refugee committee and said, ‘they will review my case well this time,” but they could not. You couldn’t believe the administration, so you said, “the judge will relieve my injustice,” but you lost the case again. Now you are unfairly facing the danger of deportation, because you are much more likely to fall into the 99.6 percent than to fall into the lucky 0.4 percent. Is it really wrong for refugees to believe in the Korean government and institutions?
The Ministry of Justice’s refugee law amendment lays out the wrong priorities
▲ A recognized refugee walking down a street in Seoul
The Ministry of Justice’s amendment to the Refugee Act does not fix the “inoperative system”, but rather narrows the gateway. The fact that 99.6% of refugees who visit Korea are not identified as refugees is evidence of system failure, but the Ministry of Justice has taken exceptional cases of institutional abuse to claim that the 99.6% are clearly not refugees, calling for the revision of the procedure.
There is also a statistical evidence that one RSD official does not recognize one applicant as a refugee in a year despite interviewing refugees, preparing reports, and conducting research every day. Even if officials try hard to screen with good will, RSD officials at the front line acquire negative prejudices that the refugee system is useless from their past experiences as immigration officials. When they come across the occasional case of brokers cases where applicants exaggerate their story extend their period of stay, such negative prejudices develop into a conviction that there are no “real” refugees in Korea.
Let’s think of this in a different angle. Currently, the probability of you being acquitted as innocent in an unfairly prosecuted criminal first trial in Korea is 0.82% as of 2019. Since more than 99% of cases will be convicted anyway, would it be an abusive request for you to ask the judiciary for trial when you have been prosecuted? So, should the right to criminal trial be further restricted? Never.
Already, civil society and experts have continuously proposed solutions in different directions and communicated with the Ministry of Justice. For example, they have recommended reinforcing the professionalism of RSD officials, significantly increasing the number of officials, making the Refugee Committee a special administrative trial body independent from the Ministry of Justice, and deliberating “prompt, fair, and accumulated expertise”. These are good suggestions, and the refugee committee must be independent. Only then can the first screening operate to reduce the possibility of cancellation by the refugee committee and higher-level agencies.
This also reduces the burden on the court. An institution should also be established so that the administrative agency can easily obtain information on the refugees’ countries of origin. In the current system in Korea, the probability of a refugee applicant being protected as a recognized refugee by trusting the Korean government alone converges to zero. Keeping the current system that cannot identify refugees due to such structural problems and promoting efficient procedures wrongly prioritizes the increased deportation of legitimate refugees.
▲ The Korean Bar Association, organized by the United Nations Refugee Agency, “Symposium on the Direction of Revised Refugee Law”
