List of Issues:

1. Please elaborate on information given to asylum-seekers who wish to apply for refugee recognition.
   
   
2. Does the authority detain all those who apply for refugee recognition?
   
   
3. When deciding whether or not to grant refugee status to those who have been recognized as "mandate refugees" by the UNHCR, do the Japanese authorities give due consideration to the UNHCR's decision?
   
   
4. Is training on refugee recognition given to administrative officers, including refugee inspectors, and the judges who handle trials of administrative cases brought by asylum-seekers? If so, please elaborate on specific materials used and the programs of the training.

Background:

Introduction

The numbers of applications for refugee recognition, of recognized cases, and the rate of recognition remain quite low (see the table below). In particular the numbers and the rate of recognition are extremely low for asylum-seekers who are from China or areas other than Indo-China, and in some cases examination of cases is suspended for a long period of time. Although these figures do not immediately indicate that there are human rights violations, they do strongly suggest insufficient implementation in Japan of the rights of asylum-seekers provided for under the Covenant.

1. Refugee application forms are not readily provided in the ports of entrance throughout the country. At least, applicants do not have easy access to the application forms. Since the forms are printed only in Japanese and English, it is quite inconvenient for those who do not understand these languages. When necessary, translations into other languages can be made by writing by hand between the lines, but it takes time (days sometimes) while leaving the applicants feeling apprehensive. There is little consideration for linguistic minorities. For example, Chinese applicants from the south or ethnic minorities face difficulty in communication as Mandarin is most often employed as the Chinese language.
   
   Some immigration officers and airline personnel give wrong information that only those who have made a legal entrance can file a refugee application. For those whose landing in Japan (for temporary shelter) has not been authorized, these officers might not even hand out a refugee application form, or they might reject a completed application form, or delay the acceptance of the form were it not for the watchfulness or requests of NGOs or other parties.
   
   Asylum-seekers are not informed of their rights or given the addresses of the UNHCR or other NGOs that are concerned with human rights. Therefore, it is only on rare occasions, when NGOs come across information about asylum-seekers, that they can receive effective support for their applications for refugee status.
   
   
2. The Immigration Control Act stipulates that immigration police officers can detain foreigners if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that conditions for deportation have been met (Article 39). In practice, necessity for detention is not examined individually, but all those who are suspected to be within reasonable grounds are detained (the principle of wholesale detention). The period of detention is certified as 60 days, but there is no limit of the detention period once a deportation order is issued (Articles 41 and 52). Refugee recognition is a part of immigration administration, which traditionally regards itself to be free to wield the discretion of the state. Asylum-seekers are no exception of the principle of wholesale detention, but this practice falls under arbitrary detention that is prohibited under Article 9 of the Covenant.
   
   
3. Even refugees recognized by the UNHCR (mandate refugees) can be continuously detained if Japanese authorities do not grant them refugee status as "Convention refugees." Even if a third country says that it will accept an asylum-seeker who is currently in Japan or the UNHCR recognizes him/her to be a "mandate refugee," Japan will not allow him/her residency status. The initial problem in this regard is that the law does not stipulate residency status as "refugees." Even if they are released on parole they would face difficulties in maintaining a livelihood as they do not have residency status and thus cannot work legally.
   
   Luo Yi, a Chinese national, lodged an application for refugee recognition on August 14, 1995. The UNHCR recognized him as a refugee on October 3, 1996. His request for parole, having a UNHCR legal officer as his guarantor, was rejected on November 24, 1996. He once again filed a request of parole premised on exit to a third country and it was finally granted on January 24, 1996. In total, he was detained over 110 days. On February 4, 1997, a day before his departure, the Japanese authorities, in an exception, issued a special permit of stay (a 90-day short-term residency status for the preparation for exit), allowing him to leave Japan legally without the stigma of deportation. It is extremely rare for the Japanese authorities to grant a special permit of stay and residency status to refugees who are not recognized by Japan as being "Convention refugees," and Japan does not recognize humanitarian status or other categories of refugees. Even a "mandate refugee" recognized by the UNHCR is denied the freedom of movement and housing in Japan.
   
   Cooperation between immigration bureau officers and the UNHCR is weak because it only began recently. Involvement of the UNHCR is allowed only after an applicant files an objection to the Justice Minister's decision not to recognize his/her refugee status. So far, however, only a small number of objections have been sustained. Therefore, a close cooperation system should be established between immigration officers and the UNHCR legal officers in which inspection and consultation are jointly conducted from the initial stage of refugee recognition.
   
   
4. Administrative officers who handle refugee recognition and the judges who examine the request for nullifying non-recognition have either had no training or very insufficient training on refugee recognition. They are still under the strong influence of traditional recognition wherein immigration control is at the free discretion of the state. The authorities have neither produced appropriate materials for immigration-specific training or effectively used teaching materials or resources prepared by the UNHCR or human rights NGOs.
   
   Since judges have not received appropriate training on refugee recognition, they tend to interpret "persecuted" circumstances too narrowly, and to demand excessively objective evidence of such circumstances. As a result, judgments to nullify non-recognition decisions have been next to nonexistent. For instance, the Tokyo District Court ruled that "since the persecution concerns actions (to be) taken by the government authority of the applicant's state of origin, if he/she feels that he/she will be persecuted by the religious opponent, such circumstance does not directly falls within the "persecution" (February 28, 1995).