The National Human Rights Commission of Korea made recommendation to enhance systems related to refugee application and establish legal foundation for management and operation of departure waiting rooms in airports in a bid to better protect human rights of foreigners who applied for refugee status or are staying in waiting room for departure.
The NHRCK recommended to the Minister of Justice to make an amendment to legislation to allow a refugee status applicant to be referred to refugee application determination procedure unless he or she is clearly decided as not refugee.
In addition, recommendation was made to notify result of decision on referral to refugee application determination procedure in various languages to help to applicant understand the result and provide procedure to file an objection on non-referral.
The Commission also recommended to establish a legal basis regarding establishment, management and operation of waiting rooms in a bid to better protect human rights of foreigners staying in the waiting room and to make amendment to related legislation to guarantee basic right of people whose refugee application was failed to be referred to determination process and filed an objection regarding the decision.
The waiting room which is often referred to as repatriation waiting room was created to allow foreigners who are not permitted to enter the country to stay for a short period of time before they go back to their country. However, there have been many cases where foreigners stay for a long period of time and too many people were staying in the room, resulting dire situation and treatment.
In addition, increasing number of foreigners who applied for refugee status failed to be referred to refugee status determination procedure with no process for filing an objection in place, and many of them file lawsuits, resulting in increasing number of people staying in the waiting room for a long period of time.
The Commission hopes that the foreigners apply for refugee status are guaranteed with proper refugee status determination procedure, and dire situation in waiting room is improved.
