21 December, 2012 The Commission set up in 2011 to report on the possibility of a UK Bill of Rights published its report yesterday, 18 December. It has not attracted much attention from the media. The report itself runs to 282 pages, which I do not claim to have read in full. I was aware […]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published on 23 October 2012 a new set of Guidelines on International Protection relating specifically to claims to refugee status based on sexual orientation under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees. These Guidelines supplement the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status […]
An appalling case is reported today, 8 October 2012, in the Daily Mail Online. It is the story of a Sudanese African whose identity is not disclosed, who in the course of a number of BBC interviews said that he was between 2003 and 2006 a fighter in the Janjaweed militia which was responsible for […]
In its judgment in the case of RT (Zimbabwe) and others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2012] UKSC 38 delivered on 25 July 2012 the Supreme Court gave an important ruling in relation to asylum appeals. The four parties from Zimbabwe were asylum seekers claiming that if they were returned to Zimbabwe there was […]
In Briefing Paper No 8.43, issued in July 2010, I commented on the case of Pankina v. Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ.719, decided by the Court of Appeal. The principle enunciated in that case is that changes in the law, in particular to detailed provisions in the Immigration Rules, must […]
In our legal Briefing Paper No 8.55 published in August 2011 I set out the views of Migration Watch in response to the initial consultation paper issued by the Commission on Human Rights. For all the reasons set out in that paper we expressed ourselves to be strongly opposed to a new Bill of Rights. On […]
The Home Office has recently promulgated a document running to 45 pages which substantially amends those paragraphs of the Immigration Rules which relate to family life. In this paper I am concentrating on those amendments which relate to the ability of convicted immigrant criminals to plead in accordance with Article 8 of the European Convention […]
1. Abolition of family visit appeals. (i) The Crime and Courts Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords on 28 May. Its main purpose is to establish the new National Crime Agency, but among its other miscellaneous provisions are two which are intended to make changes in the immigration appeals system. […]
Summary of the debate held in the Commons chamber on 19th June (Hansard Reference: 19 June 2012 : Column 760). Theresa May and Damian Green's speeches are shown in full.
For a general discussion of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees together with the New York Protocol of 1967, (together referred to in this paper as “the Convention”) you are referred to Legal Briefing Paper 8.32 “Asylum Seekers – a serious case of misunderstanding” and also to the definitions of “asylum”, […]