Today the Refugee Act finally comes into force. It was signed into law by the then President in June 1996 but never became operable because of delays in formal implementation. Now the much-criticised delay is over, why aren't Amnesty International and other human rights organisations happy? Because the amended Act ignores basic legal safeguards and denies fundamental rights to people fleeing torture and worse.
The amendments were effected by the Immigration Act 1999 and the Illegal Immigrants (Trafficking) Act 2000, and contain ominous implications for asylum-seekers coming to Ireland.
Take the case of an Algerian, targeted by Islamic fundamentalists because he's in the Algerian army. He somehow gets himself to Germany and tries to claim political asylum. But when he applies he discovers Germany does not recognise non-state persecution as a ground for granting refugee status. He makes his way to Ireland, where non-state persecution is an acceptable ground for claiming refugee status.
When the Department of Justice eventually considers his claim, it deems it "manifestly unfounded" because he did not mention his prior application in Germany. The case is then put into a "fast-track" procedure where a life and death decision is made by a civil servant who is not required to have any training in human rights or refugee law.
Any appeal against the decision is written only - the Act doesn't entitle him to an oral hearing to present his case.
Whereas 4 per cent of asylum applications were determined to be "manifestly unfounded" in 1999, the overall figures for this year so far reveal 40 per cent of applications were deemed "manifestly unfounded". Superficial issues, such as means of arrival to Ireland, should not outweigh a well-founded fear of persecution. Or take an Iraqi doctor who is thrown into jail for refusing to cut off the ears and feet of a military deserter. She escapes from detention and spends all of her money buying a fake passport and a way to Ireland. When she arrives in Dublin she is immediately fingerprinted and indefinitely detained in prison. Her crime? Possession of the forged identity documents she needed to escape.
The Government now says it will introduce carrier sanctions whereby airlines and ferry companies will be forced to pay thousands of pounds in fines if they allow people to arrive in Ireland without proper travel documentation. This means airline staff will have to carry out the specialised work of immigration officials before a person is allowed to board a plane.
How will a low-paid Aer Lingus worker cope with having to make such difficult decisions and what will the unions make of this? And will passengers end up paying for the Government fines in higher fares?
The Refugee Act also demands that asylum-seekers send letters to the Department of Justice by registered post, the cost of which must presumably come out of their £15 a week social welfare payment, as the ban on asylum-seekers' right to work remains. An asylum-seeker trying to supplement this income may even find him or herself in prison for defying this prohibition.
Large chunks of international agreements to which Ireland is party are ruthlessly ignored in the Refugee Act. The Act is supposed to fulfil Ireland's international legal obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. It doesn't. The 1951 Convention obliges states not to impose sanctions on those who arrive in a country illegally to seek asylum. Yet the Refugee Act clearly provides for detention in such situations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. Carrier sanctions and accelerated procedures punch massive holes in these safeguards.
It is no defence to say that Ireland is not alone in this business of evading legal obligations. Unless the State is conspiring to rewrite international law, it is hard to see why it insists on breaching the very standards it set for itself.
Although the Government has the right to regulate the entry of foreign nationals into Ireland, this right should not be exercised in a way that contravenes our obligations under international human rights law.
In the Irish criminal law system, certain safeguards for those charged with offences - far worse than the possession of forged identity documents - are guaranteed. The presumption of innocence, for instance, is rooted in the best traditions of civil liberties and constitutional justice. But such guarantees are not afforded to asylum-seekers.
The final hope that an asylum applicant has if the Department of Justice has refused his or her case is judicial review in the courts. Even this right has been targeted by the legislation. As opposed to the normal six-month period allowed to an Irish citizen to bring a case for judicial review against an objectionable decision made by a State department, an asylum-seeker has 14 days. Numerous other time limits within the asylum procedure have been shortened, causing serious difficulties for lawyers representing asylum-seekers.
FOR an asylum-seeker, the stakes are high. Where return to execution or torture is the ultimate outcome of a hasty or erroneous civil service decision, is it too much to ask for decent safeguards?
Or do we have to wait to witness a case like that of Bouasria Ben Othman, a rejected Algerian asylum-seeker, who was arrested upon being sent back to Algeria by the Belgian authorities? A few months later the Algerian police informed his family that he had thrown himself out of a window while in detention and had died. He was 31 years old.
Ursula Fraser is refugee officer with Amnesty International Irish Section. For further information see www.amnesty.ie