Except in the Czech Republic, where a response to the question of asylum seekers seems almost nonexistent.

According to nongovernmental organizations that advocate refugee rights, the Czech asylum system is so labyrinthine, so fraught with bureaucratic peril and so draconian in its requirements that, for all its complexity, it usually might as well not exist at all.

Consider this: From 1990 to 2004, more than 75,000 foreigners applied for asylum in the Czech Republic. Only about 2,500 emerged from the other end of the maze. That's less than 167 a year, or just over 3 percent.

Last year, the nation's record was even worse, granting asylum to only 142 foreigners — just 2.6 percent of those who applied.

So how does that compare to other European nations? To look at that, it's instructive to see exactly how certain nationalities receive treatment, since it's through those disparities that obvious biases emerge. For Ukrainians, as an example, the prospects for asylum in the Czech Republic remain particularly bleak. In 2003, only five individual Ukrainians — just 0.3 percent of that nationality's applicants — received approval; contrast that with France, which approved 11.5 percent of its Ukrainian applicants that same year, a portion that is 38 times higher.

Běla Hejná from the Counseling Centre for Refugees told the Czech News Agency that "the number of asylums granted does not really correspond to the number of people who rightfully apply for international legal protection in our country, and who should receive asylum." And Jaroslav Větrovský from the Organization for Aid to Refugees said that even in rejection, the system abuses its applicants: The stated reasons for refusals are sometimes "so confused," he told the Czech media, that many applicants can't even figure out why they were turned down.

In all of this, several questions naturally occur: Doesn't the Czech Republic have the right to decide whom it allows permanent entry into its territory? Why would these people be entitled to come here in the first place?

The answers, however, speak to deeper questions in the Czech identity. Does the Czech Republic really want to be a nation friendly to humanitarian interests, one of the cornerstones of European foreign policy? Has it really forgotten the countless number of Czechs granted asylum in the West during the dark decades of the Cold War — only to submit to the current flavor of transitory nationalism?

For certain, not every applicant in any system would be entitled to asylum, and it may even be true that most applicants, upon fair review, still wouldn't qualify. Immigration officials also note that many asylum applicants come from nations like Russia, Romania and Ukraine, where oppression is not so astringent as in places like Sudan, the Palestinian territories and other flashpoints of political violence.

Ultimately, however, Czech politicians know they must answer to their electorate, which collectively has taken a dim view of the prospect of welcoming foreigners into society. The mark of true leadership, however, is not to simply hold a finger to the wind and then follow the whim of the masses — it's not to do what's popular; it's to do what's right.