European court: Refugee and Spycatcher decisions
01 January 1991
European court: Refugee and Spycatcher decisions
artdoc February=1992
Human rights activists and lawyers expressed their dismay at the
rejection by the European Court of Human Rights of a claim by
Tamil refugees that Britain had violated their human rights by
sending them back to Sri Lanka. On 30 October 1991 the Court
ruled that there was no violation of Article 3, which prohibits
inhuman or degrading treatment, or of Article 13, which demands
an effective domestic remedy for alleged violations.
The five Tamils fled from Sri Lanka to Britain in 1987 and
claimed political asylum. They were refused, and after
applications for judicial review of the decision were finally
rejected by the House of Lords; the men were returned to Sri
Lanka in February 1988. There, four of them were detained and
tortured or ill-treated by the authorities. Later, an appeal
succeeded and the Home Office was obliged to readmit them. But
the Court decided that the evidence the Home Office had in
February 1988 did not establish that their position was any worse
than that of other Tamils; there was a possibility of detention
and ill-treatment, but that did not oblige the Home Office to let
them stay. The Court also decided that judicial review of a
decision not to grant asylum was an adequate remedy, even though
it did not allow the court to decide that the Home Office was
wrong in refusing asylum. The Tamils' solicitor, Chris Randall,
spoke for many when he said: `I fear the judgment has a lot to
do with European politics and very little to do with human
rights.'
There was further disappointment over the decision, a week
later, that the injunctions preventing publication of extracts
from Spycatcher on grounds of national security did not violate
Article 10 of the Human Rights Convention, which guarantees
freedom of speech, until the book had been published elsewhere.
The Court held that considerations of national security were
legitimate to stop publication by the Observer and others, until
publication in the US and elsewhere rendered such considerations
impractical. Vilvarajah v United Kingdom, ECHR, 30.10.91;
Observer v United Kingdom, ECHR.
Statewatch, Volume 2 no 1, January/February 1992