Refugee Status Claims in New Zealand Since 1978, procedures have been in place for determining refugee status claims which, until October 1990, were vetted by Ministers of
Foreign Affairs and Immigration, acting on advice from a committee of government officials known as the Inter-departmental Committee on Refugees. the Court recognised that the existing procedures were insufficient and, as a consequence, on 17 December 1990 new procedures were approved to deal with applications for refugee status. This led to the incorporation of procedures into the
Terms of Reference and established the right of appeal to the
Refugee Status Appeals Authority. In August 2014, the Immigration and Protection Tribunal granted refugee status to Tuvalu residents due to climate change, making it the first body in the world to grant refugee status because of climate change. The news raises questions about whether other nations will follow suit.
The Refugee Status Appeals Authority The RSAA approached issues of substantive refugee law with a wide eye, drawing on definitions from the
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,
case law from other States, and respected academics.
Significant Issues Addressed by the RSAA Civil War In 1999 the RSAA was asked to investigate claims that refugee status officers had adopted an approach to civil war claims which required the claimant to establish that he or she was more at risk of persecution for an identifiable Convention reason than others. However, the RSAA also looked at how, in a civil war situation, a claimant can connect their anticipated harm with their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This was an attempt to prevent Indonesians of Chinese ethnicity from seeking refugee status in New Zealand in the aftermath of the violence that was taking place, particularly in Java. The RSAA ruled on a refugee claim in 1999 where it was held that any claim based on the assertion that Chinese Indonesians are at risk of persecution by virtue of their race alone is bound to fail and that the discrimination experienced by Chinese Indonesians does not rise to the level of persecution. The RSAA left open questions surrounding whether an atmosphere of insecurity is a violation of the rights to personal security as guaranteed by Article 9(1) of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Internal Protection Alternative Throughout the 1990s, the RSAA looked at whether a person who otherwise satisfies the refugee definition can be denied recognition as a refugee on the grounds that effective state protection is available in his or her country of origin. The RSAA formulated a series of issues they would employ to deal with such cases: He was later charged and convicted in absentia by Belgium and France for criminal related activities before arriving in New Zealand. Upon arrival in New Zealand, Zaoui sought refugee status. The RSAA dealt with his appeal but his application was opposed by the
Security Intelligence Service. In August 2003 the RSAA declared previous trials held against Zaoui to be “unsafe” and granted him refugee status. The case was highly publicised and attracted significant media and political attention. In 2007, the head of the Security Intelligence Service withdrew opposition to Zaoui’s refugee application and the
New Zealand Government in turn withdrew objections.
The Formation of the Immigration and Protection Tribunal The National Government passed the new Immigration Act in 2008, calling it “the most comprehensive review of immigration law in almost quarter of a century.” The creation of an independent Immigration and Protection Tribunal (IPT) was one of the salient achievements of this new Act. The IPT was established via combined work by the Department of Labour and the Ministry of Justice and replaces four separate appeal bodies: the
Refugee Status Appeals Authority (RSAA); the Removal Review Authority (RRA); the Residence Review Board (RRB); and the Deportation Review Tribunal (DRT). Any outstanding appeals against decisions made under the Immigration Act 1987 are heard by the IPT. ==Composition==