### Chapter 6. Promotion of Appropriate and Prompt Refugee Protection

## Section 1 ♦ Revision of the Operation of the Refugee Recognition System

With regard to the refugee recognition system, the time required for the examination of the cases is becoming more prolonged, and problems have been occurring which hinder the provision of prompt asylum to genuine refugees owing to the proliferation of applications for recognition of refugee status in recent years and applications which attempt to abuse the system for the purpose of employment or residence in Japan. Moreover, problems have also arisen concerning the difficulty of clarifying the decisions on whether or not an applicant is a refugee.

Therefore, based on the purport of the recommendations in the reports submitted in December 2014 by the “Sixth Immigration Policy Discussion Panel” which is the private advisory council of the Minister of Justice and the “Expert Meeting on the Refugee Recognition System”, a study was conducted on reviewing the operation of the refugee recognition system, which was published in the form of the “Summary of the Revision of the Operation of the Refugee Recognition System” on September 15, 2015.

The contents of the review were (i) clarifying the persons eligible for protection, the decisions on recognition and the procedures, (ii) strengthening the system and infrastructure pertaining to refugee recognition administration, and (iii) appropriate handling of applications attempting to abuse or misuse the refugee recognition system, and the measures implemented so far are as given below.

(i) Clarifying the persons eligible for protection, the decisions on recognition and the procedures

A press release on the number of applicants recognized as refugees in 2015 was published in March 2016, which gave case examples of applicants recognized as refugees, case examples of applicants who were not recognized as refugees, and case examples of applicants who were granted residence permission owing to humanitarian consideration, and the points of the decisions were clearly indicated.

(ii) Strengthening the system and infrastructure pertaining to refugee recognition administration

As well as implementing refugee recognition administrative staff training for management-level officers with the cooperation of the UNHCR, the Immigration Bureau has been working on the development and capacity-building of refugee inquirers through enhancing the content of the regular training relating to information on the countries of origin of the applicants for refugee recognition, and practical training using case studies.

(iii) Appropriate handling of applications attempting to abuse or misuse the refugee recognition system

In order to quickly and reliably provide asylum to those persons who are in genuine need, applications attempting to abuse or misuse the refugee recognition system such as applications claiming circumstances which clearly do not come under the grounds of persecution under the Refugee Convention are sorted beforehand at the stage prior to a fully-fledged investigation, and such cases are quickly processed while ensuring that the applicant has an opportunity to make a sufficient claim such as through a hearing into the circumstances by a refugee inquirer, and moreover, we have been revising the handling of permission for employment and residence for applicants of refugee recognition, and by setting certain conditions, have been striving to make decisions on an individual basis.