What the problem is:
A) Law enforcement and refugees: conflicts of interest
1) Under current Irish law, it is the Ministry of Justice (i.e., law enforcement) that is responsible to make sure refugees' rights are fulfilled. Yet NGO's expert in refugee concerns have decried conflicts of interest between the Ministry for Justice' enforcement role and its domination of all refugee matters.
2) The Council of Europe has recently censured Irish government cooperation in CIA human rights abuse in the EU. Their report therein has particularly noted the prominent role of enforcement agencies, who "frequently cooperate" in such violations "without the consent or knowledge of their own governments."
3) In view of the Justice Ministry’s collusion with the CIA in making victims of human rights abuses “disappear” (i.e. assisting in illegal “rendition”) how can anyone consider appointing that Ministry as both judge and advocate for such victims?
B) What is wrong with Justice Ministry's treatment of refugees in
1) Said well-documented cooperation in human rights abuse by foreign entities is only the most glaring of many such conflicts, which render said Ministry entirely unfit for any role whatever in caring for the needs of refugees.
2) Yet said Justice Ministry
a) has keenly sought total control over the lives of all who report human rights abuse abroad; and
b) has actively sought to exclude all independent review of their processes and performance therein by other agencies.
c) residents in Justice housing and their advocates in NGOs have reported widespread abuses, including:
i) denial of food, heat and medical attention (sometimes as retaliation against residents who place complaints);
ii) residents forced from their housing by Justice representatives, rendered homeless (sometimes as retaliation against residents who place complaints);
iii) residents afterward fraudulently reported by Justice representatives as "missing";
iv) applicants litigating their claim in the Superior Courts illegally removed from the State against their will, before the Court has heard their case.
3) Justice Ministry alone has the power to decide which asylum claims are valid:
their refusal of 90% does not match the statistics of any other source.
4) The Ministry claims that these thousands of people flee their country without any good reason. But their “findings” are belied by every other country in the EU, by the UN, and by every refugee crisis in history.
5) This means that the testimony of thousands of victims is outweighed and negated by the word of a handful of privileged white-collar bureaucrats: from an agency with suspicious ties to the perpetrators of the war crimes which created the catastrophe.
6) 7000 asylum applicants have disappeared while in Justice’ care. Now the same Ministry proposes to imprison future applicants, entirely based on this shocking failure to account for the fate of vulnerable crime victims whose lives were the Ministry's responsibility.
7) Endeavouring to shift the blame for this suspicious state of affairs onto the victims themselves, Justice claims that these thousands should be blamed for their own disappearance in absentia, without independent investigation. And that future applicants should be punished with arbitrary imprisonment without trial for events in which they had no part.
8) Said extraordinary practices discriminate against victims and witnesses of international war crimes and human rights violations:
a) thereby placing such victims and witnesses of crime at a grave disadvantage, in relation to alleged perpetrators of such crime;
b) arbitrarily raising requirements for the fulfilment of such victims' rights under EU law;
c) resulting in a disproportionality in the administration of justice which fosters international human rights violations and war crimes.
These injustices therefore are dangerous to people everywhere: no matter how seemingly secure from ever becoming refugees themselves.
C) Human warehousing
Yet they are made to languish for years, awaiting the resolution of their asylum claim: prohibited, under the harshest penalties, from work or from seeking employment.
A high percentage of these asylum applicants have third level education, and other valuable skills which are in high demand here.
This "human warehousing" creates a reservoir of the desperate, which may be very convenient for buyers of "cheap foreign labour."
D) Problems in
1) The new immigration bill (as of June 2008) fails to correct the real flaws in the previous law; and
2) proposes new abusive powers, so sweeping and invidious, as to reduce the rest of the law to the merest camouflage of those powers.
3) Especially dangerous therein are:
a) failure to place refugee matters under an independent agency separate from the Justice Ministry;
b) failure to curtail the Ministry for Justice' excessive discretion in matters bearing upon the life and freedom of individuals;
c) proposals to imprison applicants for asylum (see preceding items above)
d) deportation without advance notice, without a hearing, and now without disclosing destination [1]= disparacidos. It is impossible to fail to recognize in such measures the legalization of "making people disappear."
e) In refugee cases, where people's lives may be at risk, such a law sets a precedent dangerous to the human rights of all, everywhere.
f) said new immigration law's Part 7, Number 92 denies asylum applicants the right to independent health examination: specifying that their physical and mental condition can only be evaluated by doctors of the Ministry's choosing. No blameless purpose can be attributed to such an agenda.
What is needed to solve the problem?
1) Refugee matters should be handled by a modern, independent immigration department: entirely separate from law enforcement.
2) Law enforcement should have nothing whatever to do with refugee matters.
3) Asylum / protection should be granted strictly in accordance with the criteria set out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). [2]
4) No imprisonment for crime victims: Refugees are victims of international human rights violations: the worst kind of crime:
a) To apply for asylum / protection is to report these crimes and to seek victims' assistance.
b) To imprison such victims is to silence and intimidate them: it is to discourage and inhibit their reports.
c) The only elements who could knowingly welcome such a course are the
perpetrators of the crime.
5) Those who decide applications for asylum and their managers must have a full command of expertise in UNHCR criteria, national and international refugee law, and all issues affecting such applicants.
a) said expertise must be continually updated and examined;
b) they must be held accountable if they fail to apply criteria, or issue decisions based on irrelevant matters / illegitimate purposes.
6) If
7) Limits on the number of applicants accepted each year should be
a) openly negotiated: not enforced by secret agenda;
b) clearly published on the internet;
c) prominently displayed on the same page inviting applicants to apply for asylum.
8) It is necessary to recognize that in human rights violations affecting refugees, governments are often culpable and national security forces are frequently the perpetrators: and that this can create conflicts of interest for other governments / governing bodies and national security agencies.
9) To prevent the exploitation of refugee systems for "human warehousing":
Within designated time limits, governments who fail to provide an "effective remedy within a reasonable time" [3] should be obliged to offer affected applicants acceptable alternative solutions, to allow them to get on with their lives and become contributing members of society.
10) No deportation without hearing for anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason.
11) Asylum applicants, as alleged crime victims, whose purpose in entering the country has been to save or improve their lives, should not be subject to deportation which entails such punitive measures as banishment for life without appeal.
12) If non-criminal deportation is allowed, deportees must
a) have options regarding their destination; and
b) be enabled to make informed choices therein which will be respected.
[1] The Ministry for Justice recently fought in court and won the power to deport without disclosing the deportation's intended destination. And this is the agency upholding refugee rights!
[2] "Handbook on Procedures and Criteria For Determining Refugee Status Under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees" ("UNHCR Handbook") published by the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR), (Geneva 1979; re-edition 1996)
[3] European Convention on Human Rights
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