Seoul High Court: HIV Not Justifiable Reason for Deportation

by Brendon Carr

Some good news for a change: The Seoul High Court has ruled that foreign residents of Korea cannot be deported simply because of testing HIV positive, according to a report in the Law Times I noticed today. The High Court, an intermediate appellate court, affirmed a district court ruling in favor of a Chinese migrant laborer, a Mr. (Ms.?) Heo, who challenged a deportation order by the Seoul Bureau of the Immigration Service prompted by an HIV-positive blood test result.

Presiding Judge Yu Seung-Jeong (phonetic spelling) held that the objective of protecting public health must be balanced against the infected person’s human rights—which means privacy, as well as the right to receive medical treatment. Judge Yu noted that detection and treatment of HIV were more effective methods to arrest the spread of AIDS than simply tossing out foreigners found to carry the virus.

In the community of foreign residents of Korea, the current practice of automatic deportation for HIV-positive foreigners has tended to suppress the number of people getting voluntarily tested—because as bad as a positive result would be, for many it would be worse to be summarily kicked out of the country and returned home jobless and without health insurance coverage.

Although the story doesn’t note whether or not the case has been appealed, a matter as important as this one undoubtedly will be decided by a final judgment of the Supreme Court.

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