Despite Two Seizures, She Pressed Ahead for Gaza..."Passport Surrender Order Was Lawful"

[Financial News] A peace activist who was seized and detained twice by the Israeli military while heading to the Gaza Strip filed a lawsuit after defying the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' order to surrender her passport, but the court rejected the claim. The court ruled that a passport surrender order can also be issued to someone who has already left the country.
According to the legal community on the 27th, Seoul Administrative Court Division 12, presided over by Chief Judge Kang Jae-won, ruled against the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed that day by Kim Ah-hyun, whose activist name is Haecho, seeking to overturn the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' passport surrender order. The panel said the order had no procedural defects, the grounds for the order were valid, and even if Kim's freedom of residence and movement was restricted, the measure did not violate the principle of proportionality and could not be seen as an abuse or misuse of discretion.
Kim, a member of the international civic coalition Thousand Madleens to Gaza (TMTG), boarded a relief flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in September last year. She was seized and detained by the Israeli Navy in October and later deported and returned home. Three months after her return, Kim said in a media interview on Jan. 19 that she planned to head back to Gaza this spring. On March 11, she left for France to join a relief flotilla. Around March 20, the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Kim had already departed and, on March 25, ordered her to surrender her passport within seven days of receiving the notice, citing Article 19, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of the Passport Act.
When TMTG abandoned its voyage around May 2, Kim switched to a relief flotilla affiliated with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition in Syracuse, Sicily, and traveled to Turkey. While sailing toward the Gaza Strip, Kim was detained by the IDF on May 20 and returned home two days later via Thailand. It had been seven months since her first seizure and two months since she was ordered to surrender her passport.
Kim's side argued that, under the interpretation of the Passport Act, it should not be permissible to order someone who has already left the country to surrender a passport. The court did not accept that argument. It said, "Article 19, Paragraph 1, Item 2 of the Passport Act only sets out as grounds for a surrender order the fact that a passport holder has come to fall under Article 12, Paragraph 1, Item 4(a) after the passport was issued. It does not separately require that the person still be in the country before the surrender order is issued." The court added, "Even if the person concerned has already left the country at the time of the order, the grounds for the order still exist."
The panel said there was a very high risk that Kim could suffer serious harm to her life and body if she tried to sail again five or six months after being seized and detained, as she could be seized once more by the IDF. On the question of whether the order violated the principle of proportionality, the court examined in turn the legitimacy of the purpose, the suitability of the means, the minimum necessary infringement, and the balance of interests. It said the Foreign Minister's predictive judgment deserved the greatest possible deference, especially because the order was effectively the only measure available to restrict Kim's access to the Gaza Strip, and other indirect or alternative measures would not adequately protect her life and physical safety.
The panel said, "The plaintiff's humanitarian convictions and the freedom to act on them must be respected." It added, "However, the right to life is the premise of all fundamental rights and, like human dignity, is one of the highest constitutional values. The state must therefore accept a special duty to protect it."
[email protected] Kim Dong-gyu Reporter