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| Yemeni asylum seekers on Jeju Island line up at a Red Cross booth for health checkups in this June 2018 photo. Korea Times file |
By Lee Suh-yoon
Starting next year, the justice ministry will run a separate department for reviewing asylum seekers' appeals against decisions made by the refugee screening department, the ministry announced, Thursday.
Previously, rejected asylum seekers appealed their cases to a committee under the refugee screening department. By creating an independent unit, the ministry said appeals applications can be given a faster and more professional review.
The organizational change means more staff will be dedicated to reviewing asylum seekers' appeals. The ministry hopes this will help alleviate the existing bottleneck. According to ministry data from the first half of 2019, the evaluation process for an average asylum seeker took 12.3 months, and the following appeals reviews, 11.3 months. Over 80 percent of rejected applicants appeal, the ministry said.
"The creation of a new refugee appeals review department will provide the infrastructure for a timely and fair appeals process," the ministry said in a statement.
The number of asylum seekers in Korea has grown almost 10 times since 2014 due to a global refugee crisis. Last year, 16,173 people applied for asylum in Korea, according to the immigration office.
Earlier this year, the immigration authority came under fire after it was found some of its officials had fabricated parts of the interview transcripts of Arab and Muslim asylum seekers to disadvantage them in the review.
