In July 2010, in order to stabilize as quickly as possible the legal status of those foreign nationals who
ought to be recognized as refugees, the Immigration Bureau set six months as the standard time for the
processing of one refugee application and aimed to achieve by the end of March 2011 the processing of all
applications, in principle, within this timeframe. In addition, the Immigration Bureau made the decision
to announce on a quarterly basis the average processing (examination) time for refugee applications on the
Ministry of Justice website.