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UK: Court upholds refugee status

01 November 1999

A week after the Court of Appeal stopped the Home Secretary from returning certain asylum seekers to France and Germany on "safe third country" grounds (see Statewatch vol 9 no 5) the High Court came to the defence of another article of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 31 of the Convention clearly stipulates that no asylum seeker should be penalised for "...their illegal entry or presence...provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence". The cases were those of an Algerian, an Iraqi Kurd and an Albanian. The three are among hundreds against whom criminal proceedings for entering on false documents have been brought, resulting in many cases in prison sentences of between six and nine months.

In a ruling which appeared to be strongly critical of both the Home Office and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Lord Justice Simon Brown said "One cannot help wondering whether perhaps increasing incidence of such prosecutions is yet another weapon in the battle to deter refugees from seeking asylum in this country." The judge added that he was struck by the fact that neither the Home Secretary nor the DPP appeared to have given "the least thought to the UK's obligations under Article 31".

The immediate implication of the ruling is that asylum seekers who have been jailed for entering the UK on false documents will be able to challenge their sentences in court, whether they pleaded guilty or not guilty to the offence with which they were charged, (usually, an offence under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981). Lord Justice Brown stated that there will now be people in jail who should not be, as a result of the Home Office and the CPS pursuit of these prosecutions, in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Under the new Section 31 in the Immigration and Asylum Act the use of false documents, which are declared on arrival, and used to leave the country of origin will not be subject to sanctions.

Independent on Sunday 25.7.99; Guardian 30.7.99; Times 30.7.99; Independent 30.7.99.