Being Heard: Human Rights and Asylum Conference

Dear Colleague,

We are delighted to invite you to the Being Heard: Human Rights and Asylum Conference. This not to be missed event takes place on the 21st of September 2010 at the University of Leicester, Kathryn & Henry  May Lecture theatre from 9am to 4:30pm

Asylum has become an increasingly polemical issue used by the media and politicians to fuel fears. The language used and the stories that are told are often partisan, giving a biased or partial account.  The aim of this conference is to explore how ‘asylum stories’ change in a shifting economic and political context; how ‘asylum stories’ get believed or interpreted; who is telling these stories and in whose interest are they being told.

Central to the conference is the theme of ‘human rights’. Increasingly hard-line and restrictive asylum policies and practices of many governments have called into question the scope of protections offered by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The conference will explore how the Government’s recent immigration and asylum policies have undermined basic human rights by denying support to those who do not apply for asylum at the earliest opportunity.

We look forward to you joining us on the 21st of September 2010.

If you wish to attend, please contact Carl Gudgeon (Clinical Psychology Department) on telephone 0116 223 1639 or  e-mail: cmg16@leicester.ac.uk

https://acrobat.com/#d=EDDzIOLOsAh-KIgo4DYRDA
Kind regards,

Elisha Shamba

Report writing for doctors

Report writing for doctors supplying evidence on asylum applications – training, 24 September, Coventry Refugee Centre

GPs with asylum seeker patients are asked to write medical reports for asylum cases, and are often well placed through their knowledge of their patient to provide evidence and information. However, writing full, “expert” medico-legal reports requires training and experience. A network of GPs writing medico-legal reports on asylum applicants was set up in 2008 to provide training and support for GPs. Ongoing training and accreditation in medical report writing should strengthen the role of GPs and the effectiveness of their reports at the Home Office.

Sponsored by the Department of Health, the 4th GP Medical Report Training Day will provide both new and experienced GP report writers with presentations from legal and medical experts, and with a forum for GPs to present their own reports. UKBA staff will explain the role and importance of medical reports in decision-making. Expert legal advisors will present on legal aspects, and medical presenters on recognising and documenting the physical and psychological evidence of trauma/torture. There will be a session on how to structure and present expert reports.

Attendance is free. Certificates of attendance will be provided.

Anyone interested in attending should send their name and contact details to Dr Alison Callaway to book a place:

Dr Alison Callaway (Lead GP)

The Meridian, 15 Bishop Street, Coventry CV1 1HU T: 02476-223921 F: 02476-223923

So what do you do for a living? Where do you work?

by Trish Elms

It’s as common a question as remarking on the weather.   And ultimately our work or professions is part of the way we define ourselves and how others characterise us.  I am a teacher. I am therefore a professional. I am contributing positively to society.

What happens to your identity when your right to work is taken away?

Despair, desolation and even destitution.  These are some of the ways that asylum seekers are impacted while waiting for a decision on their request for asylum in the UK, sometimes for months and even years.

Perceptions of refugees coming to Britain for economic reasons, a free handout or taking British jobs or are simply untrue. Asylum seekers are looking for a place of safety.

Since 2002, almost all asylum seekers in the UK have been prevented by the Government from working.  As a result, they are forced to rely on minimal state support, as little as £5 a day, or left destitute.

The belief that asylum seekers are unskilled or uneducated is also wrong.  Past studies have shown that the majority of those seeking asylum are highly qualified people who have been successful in their home countries.

There are currently over 1000 refugees working in the UK as doctors, dentists or nurses.  Many more medically qualified asylum seekers are not allowed to work, despite possessing much-needed skills.

Further disproving these types of misconceptions is the Department of Work and Pensions’ findings that show almost a third of refugees have contributed to British society by doing voluntary work since their arrival.

Take action

Think it’s unfair that asylum seekers cannot work?  Let your concerns be known!  Write to your MP.  You can do this quickly and easily by joining the Still Human Still Here campaign to urge the government to get behind more sensible rules for asylum seekers to allow them to work if they’ve been in the UK for more than six months.  Make your voice heard, join the campaign!

SA to resume deporting Zimbabweans

South Africa is to start expelling Zimbabweans again, from 31 December, the government has announced, ending their special status.

The deportations were halted in April 2009 following an influx of those fleeing political instability and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe.

An estimated two million Zimbabweans are thought to be in South Africa.

Their presence is one reason cited for outbreaks of xenophobic attacks in recent years.

Sixty-two people were killed in such attacks in 2008 and there were fears of renewed violence after the end of the football World Cup in July.

Human rights groups have condemned the South African government’s decision, the Associated Press news agency reports.

Zimbabwe exile groups fear that anyone forced to return could still face persecution.

Read more

Refugee Council responds to asylum statistics

In response to the publication on 27 August of the Home Office asylum and immigration statistics for the second quarter of 2010, Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said: “We are pleased the government is currently looking to improve the asylum system, but these statistics show how important it is that they acknowledge some of the serious failings of the asylum process.

“Too often people seeking safety in the UK are let down by the asylum system – these figures show that almost a third of appeals are still being allowed, proving a significant proportion of initial asylum claims are being wrongly refused (this figure is almost half for Somali asylum seekers (49 per cent) and Zimbabwean asylum seekers (48 per cent). With the government proposing further cuts to legal aid for asylum seekers, we are concerned that without legal advice, many more will be wrongly refused protection and returned to countries where their lives are in danger.

“The detention figures are also cause for alarm – up to 40 per cent of people detained were later released back into their community, showing that detaining them was unnecessary in the first place. Detention must only be used as a last resort, and for the shortest time possible.”

Covey continued: “We now urge the government to focus on improving the first stages of the asylum system, to ensure people are supported throughout the process so that the right decisions are made first time. Not only will this save public money by getting people out of the system faster and avoiding costly legal challenges, this will also ensure people who have fled horrors in their own countries can start rebuilding their lives here.”

Read the Home Office statistics here: http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/immiq210.pdf

Right to work for asylum seekers

UKBA has laid Statement of Changes CM7929 to give effect (or, at least, limited effect) to the judgment of the Supreme Court in ZO (Somalia) [2010] UKSC 36.

This was the case in which the Court held that an asylum claim is still an asylum claim for the purposes of the Reception Directive whether it is an initial claim or a subsequent claim. One of the consequences of this interpretation is that where UKBA fail to make a decision on a subsequent claim for asylum (usually called fresh claims, see this earlier post for some pointers on this subject) for 12 months or more, the applicant for asylum must be give access to the labour market, subject to some potential conditions.

Well, the conditions have been announced and the only jobs for which asylum seekers kept waiting for 12 months or more will be able to apply are those on the shortage occupation list maintained by UKBA, usually for the purposes of Tier 2 (general) applications in the Points Based System. This mainly consists of doctors, nurses and engineers but still includes ballet dancers, I see. Meteorologists are no longer required, apparently.

New paragraph 360 also states that UKBA will only consider applications for permission to work where the asylum claimant has not contributed to the delay in reaching a decision. No further meaning or explanation is provided here. In the vast majority of cases the delay is entirely caused by UKBA sitting on such cases for sometimes years on end, so this is a bit rich.

Self employment or setting up a business are both prohibited.

Cuts to legal aid ‘will punish asylum-seekers’

By Paddy McGuffin

The LSC said its aim was to “improve current services wherever possible.”

But Refugee Council chief executive Donna Covey said the move was “unacceptable.”

She said: “Slashing funding for legal aid and restricting the number of law firms that can provide it means asylum-seekers will either be forced to pay for legal services themselves or, more likely, to go without.

Read more

Living against the clock

By Rowenna Davies

A family awaits the dawn knock at the door amid fears that ending detention of child asylum seekers will lead to quicker deportations

Fourteen-year-old Farzana Begum sits on her bed. She is wearing eyeliner and heavy silver earrings dangle around her small brown face. Her room could belong to many teenage girls in Manchester. A mirror is propped up on a cabinet and faded printouts of friends scatter the walls. It looks like a safe place, but it isn’t. Two weeks ago, a letter arrived informing Farzana and her mother that, after five years in the UK, their asylum claim had been rejected. Although it didn’t say when they would have to leave the UK, it did say they would be deported if they did not agree to return voluntarily to Bangladesh.

Read more

Asylum battles: two victories and one setback

By Frances Webber

The rights of asylum seekers were upheld in two recent court judgments – but those facing deportation on national security grounds were denied justice in a third.

In the first case, the charity Medical Justice (http://www.medicaljustice.org.uk/) (MJ) challenged the UK Border Agency (UKBA)’s practice of snatching refused asylum seekers, including children, and removing them from the country without adequate notice. Normal policy is to give 72 hours’ notice of a proposed removal, to enable legal challenges to be brought in the High Court – and five days where the person is refused asylum with no UK right of appeal, or where removal is to take place by charter flight. But UKBA claimed the right not to give 72 hours’ notice in certain cases, particularly where it alleged that those affected would react badly to the news of removal – including those threatening suicide, and unaccompanied children who might run away. Then, after disturbances at Campsfield House removal centre in March 2007 following delivery of removal directions to a number of detainees, UKBA extended the ‘exception’ policy to include situations where they deemed it contrary to ‘good order and discipline’ to give advance notice. These exceptions to the 72 hours notice were set out in a policy document in December 2009, and came into effect in January 2010.

Access to justice upheld

In the High Court, lawyers for Medical Justice argued that giving no notice risked denying those affected of their right of access to a court to challenge the removal. They told the judge about two Eritrean minors who had been arrested at 4am for removal at 7.30 and 9.30am under the new policy: the first had injured herself preventing her removal, while the second had not been able to stop being removed to Italy, where she had ended up, according to a distressed call she made to her solicitors, living with a male stranger she had met on the street. A young man, Nyam, was arrested at 11pm for removal at 7am and only managed to avoid removal because his solicitor woke a judge at 1.30am and obtained an injunction.

The judge accepted that it was inevitable, or at least highly probable, that many of those to be removed would be deprived of their right of access to the court, because of the huge difficulty in getting hold of a lawyer who was ready, willing and able to advise and, if necessary, to drop everything to mount an immediate legal challenge. He rejected the Home Office argument that those to be removed would have already exhausted the appeals process and would thus have no reason to challenge their removal, pointing out at least four situations where a legal challenge might be necessary:

* when people had made fresh applications and the notice of removal was given at the same time as refusal of the fresh claim;

* when removal was being enforced years after refusal of the asylum claim, by which time family circumstances or the situation back home might have changed so as to make removal unlawful;

* when someone was to be removed to a third country, which gave rise to no right of appeal;

* when the safety of the route of return was in question.

Shortage of immigration lawyers

The judge pointed out that even before the demise of Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ), the largest provider of legal advice to asylum seekers, changes to the provision of legal aid since 2000 meant that the private and not-for-profit providers of publicly funded legal services in this field had more than halved since 2001/2, from 527 to only 239 in the whole country. This meant, he held, that ‘there are formidable (if not invariably insurmountable) obstacles to be overcome because of the difficulties of first contacting an immigration lawyer; second the immigration lawyer might be unable to take on the case at such short notice; third the likely unavailability of crucial documents; fourth the problem of obtaining financial assistance and fifth the difficulties of the legal advisor being able to advise and obtain an injunction in the limited time available’. There were no legal safeguards such as deferral of removal where legal help had been sought but not yet found, or where judicial review was threatened but proceedings had not yet been brought.

Right to work upheld

The second case involved the right to work of refused asylum seekers who have put in fresh claims. ZO, a Somali woman, and MM, a Burmese man, had arrived in 2003 and 2004 respectively, and each had sought and been refused asylum. In early 2005, each of them had made fresh claims – in ZO’s case, because the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal later held that Somali women in her position were entitled to international protection. In each case, their fresh claim had not received a response five years later. In 2007, both asked for permission to work while awaiting the outcome of their claim. Both were refused. The Supreme Court held, in July 2010, that that refusal was unlawful.

European law

The case turned on the words of the EU Reception Directive, which was adopted by the European Council in January 2003 as a measure to ensure minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers which would normally be enough to ensure them a dignified standard of living and comparable living conditions in all Member States. The Directive states that if an asylum claim has not been dealt with after a year, the claimant should be granted access to the labour market. The Home Office argued that the requirement only applied to those making their first asylum claim, not refused asylum seekers making fresh claims. The Supreme Court rejected the argument, holding that the language of the Reception Directive, mirroring that of the companion directives on procedures and criteria for granting protection to asylum seekers, was completely clear and the provisions regarding the right to work obviously applied to repeat claimants – although there were provisions to enable national authorities to curtail rights in cases of abuse.

The decision provides hope to the many thousands of asylum claimants who have been forced into conditions of destitution, misery and depression by the lack of income and enforced inactivity brought about by the ban on working during the scandalously long periods of waiting for their claims to be acknowledged and processed.

Justice denied

The third case saw the Court of Appeal accept the Home Office argument that those facing deportation on grounds of national security are not entitled to a fair trial of the allegations of support for terrorism on which the proposed deportation is based. Secret evidence has been at the heart of the procedures of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) since its foundation in 1997. It is written in to SIAC’s rules, which allow the Secretary of State to withhold details of allegations and supporting evidence from appellants and their lawyers where disclosure would harm national security. The challenge to these rules followed the Supreme Court’s 2009 ruling that those facing allegations of support for terrorism in the context of control orders (ie, British citizens and foreign nationals who cannot be deported) must be told the gist of the case against them to comply with fair trial requirements in the Human Rights Convention.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling creates an enormous disparity in the way foreign nationals who are facing deportation are treated, compared with British and non-deportable foreign nationals facing identical allegations. While the latter group are entitled to know what it is they are being accused of so that they can mount an effective defence, the former group must continue to fight the allegations blindfolded – a situation which the courts accept is unjust.

In the same judgment, the Court of Appeal also confirmed that different rules apply to material which appellants want to withhold from the Secretary of State while presenting it to SIAC. Algerian detainees who claimed that they would face torture on return wanted to present supporting evidence emanating from confidential sources in Algeria, but would only do so under an absolute guarantee of confidentiality, that the material would not get back to the Algerian authorities, who could order reprisals against the informants. They asked SIAC to hear the evidence secretly, without disclosing it to the Secretary of State. SIAC refused, and said that once the appellants presented the material, it was up to the Secretary of State to decide whether to inform the Algerian authorities. The Court of Appeal upheld this stance. Its judgment made it clear that protecting the rights of those facing deportation on national security grounds, and upholding centuries-old standards of fairness, were low on its list of priorities, beneath parliamentary sovereignty and the diplomatic interests of the state. In its appeal to reasons of state, its judgment is reminiscent of eighteenth-century monarchy at its absolutist worst, and eight appellants now face deportation to torturing states, under cover of discredited ‘diplomatic assurances’, on an evidential basis largely unknown to them. An appeal to the Supreme Court is planned.

Source: Institute of Race Relations

HAT News is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

Can political asylum seekers be expected to hide their political opinions?

By Matt Donmall

TM (Zimbabwe) and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 916 – Read judgment

Is it reasonable to expect an asylum seeker on their return to their home country to lie about their political beliefs and thereby avoid persecution? This question was recently addressed by the Court of Appeal in light of a potentially wide-ranging decision of the Supreme Court relating to gay refugees.

Last month the Supreme Court held in HJ (Iran ) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] UKSC 31 that to compel a homosexual person to pretend that their sexuality does not exist is to deny him his fundamental right to be who he is (see our post). When an applicant applies for asylum on the ground of a well-founded fear of persecution because he is gay, if the tribunal concludes that a material reason for his living discreetly on his return would be a fear of the persecution which would follow if he were to live openly as a gay man, then his application should be accepted [para 82].

Read more

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