This is a case followed closely by the human rights industrial complex around the globe. Was George Soros paying for it?
The decision has them seething.
Honestly though most “refugees” and “asylum seekers” are not persecuted people, but are economic migrants looking for work and social services. When access to those things are easily obtained, more will simply arrive in the country. See Germany and Sweden which are inviting them and Israel which is attempting to remove them.
This decision is clearly designed to keep the flood gates closed in Hong Kong.
From a pro-open borders website, Refugee Work Rights:
Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal recently delivered a highly disappointing judgment in GA. v. Director of Immigration, unanimously deciding that refugees may be denied a right to work in the country. The decision, which has received considerable international attention, has been widely criticized by the public as unjust, inhumane and lacking in common sense.
Although Hong Kong’s law currently provides that asylum seekers, recognized refugees and torture claims may be granted “discretionary permission” to work by the Director of Immigration, in practice, this discretion is rarely exercised. As a result, these individuals are forced to reside in often-intolerable living conditions, work illegally and rely on a minimal government-backed allowance. With only approximately one hundred refugees in the territory, there is little weight to the argument that extending the right to work to refugees would have any notable impact upon Hong Kong’s labor market.
I think in fact the court used “common sense” by understanding that there are only a hundred “refugees” in the territory and not 1,000 or 10,000 simply because they can’t work or get handouts.
Tarnished reputation (ho-hum!):
The decision further entrenches an inadequate asylum policy in the territory, and thus, Hong Kong now must face its tarnished reputation as one of the few developed countries in the world who bans recognized refugees from fulfilling their fundamental right to work.
Who says it’s a fundamental right to work?
I just searched for any complaints at Refugee Work Rights about Saudi Arabia and its treatment of “refugee” workers, I could find nothing. They must be too blank to take on the Saudis!
