MS NICOLA ROGERS AND MRS SALLY TARSHISH

TUESDAY 4 FEBRUARY 2003

  420. Yes, but you do understand public scepticism on this point. You have Afghanis turning out to be Pakistanis and we have Iraqi Kurds turning out to be Turkish Kurds.
  (Ms Rogers) The evidence that was put forward, as I understood it, last week—and I did read the transcript—was in relation to a particular national group and it was highly qualified in relation to other groups. I do not have any other experience of that, so I cannot really add to it.

  421. Mrs Tarshish, did you want to come in?
  (Mrs Tarshish) I was going to add to what Nicola Rogers was saying. We have never had that experience of people suddenly changing nationality half-way through the conversations with them. Also, I think it goes back again to having a better quality decision-making process right at the start that would enable you to sort out the genuine people from those who do not have a genuine claim and that, if this is happening, then it is a demonstration that things are not working well at the initial stages.

  422. Huge racketeering lies behind a lot of this movement of people.
  (Mrs Tarshish) Yes, but it is not beyond the wit of the Government to try and find ways to sort this out. We know that it is difficult. We know that it is endemic and that there are organisations and the police etc trying to find this out, but I am talking about when they land in the borders of this country that the decision making at that stage would surely—this is just what you are saying—indicate that it needs to be monitored and processed in a better way than it is now. It is not successful.

  423. Miss Rogers, the ten safe countries we heard about earlier and which you briefly touched on: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Is it correct that, within those countries, the Roma fraternity in particular feel that they do not get the support and the security of the state machine?
  (Ms Rogers) My understanding is that the majority of asylum claims do originate from people of Roma descent and the problems arise in relation to the fact that they do not receive sufficient state protection against acts of persecution.

  424. So that ethnic community within those four so-called safe countries fear repression and that is the reason why they have come to the United Kingdom?
  (Ms Rogers) That is my understanding.

  425. Secondly, when will the citizens of those four accession countries have the right of free travel and to reside in the United Kingdom?
  (Ms Rogers) Happily, the minister announced that there will be immediate free movement for citizens of those countries following accession to the EU and I understand the timetable is May 2004.

  426. Just a quick point on your last responses. Do you or the people you represent assume that everyone who goes through your door claiming asylum is in fact a genuine asylum seeker?
  (Ms Rogers) We are not there to make moral judgments about people, we are there to represent them, in the same way—

  427. Regardless of the truth of their case?
  (Ms Rogers) As a lawyer, if they tell me that they are telling a lie, I cannot go to court and tell that lie for them. In the same way as if I were representing someone who was charged with a criminal offence, if they tell me that they did in fact do it but that they do not want to plead guilty, then I cannot represent them. I am there to represent their position, I am not there to make moral judgments about whether or not—

  428. Are you not there to give them advice and to say to them that this is not a case of asylum if they come to you with—?
  (Ms Rogers) If their case falls below the standard of international law and they would not fit within the 1951 Convention, then of course I will advise them. I will say, "The state of the law is this and I am afraid to say that your claim, as compassionate or sympathetic as I might be to that claim, does not fit within the law." Of course, I cannot argue it otherwise when I go to court.

  429. What do you say to your members who, having gone through all the other immigration processes with a client, then say to them, "Why don't you claim asylum instead"? What advice do you give to the members of your organisation who say that to people who go through their doors?
  (Ms Rogers) We do not give advice of that nature. We do not actually advise members. We train them on how to properly use the immigration law.

  430. What would you do if I went upstairs now and brought down files from my constituents who have been to lawyers who, having gone through the normal immigration process and failed on that, have then said, "Let's try seeking asylum"? What would you say to your members who have given that advice to people?
  (Ms Rogers) If we felt that the organisation was bringing immigration lawyers into disrepute, we may seek to expel a member and certainly we have powers to expel members who bring the organisation into disrepute by bringing the profession into disrepute. However your constituents, and indeed you, should use the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner to complain about representatives who mislead.

  431. We will certainly take that up. Can I move now straight from initial decision to removals and jump to the other end of the system. We have gone through all the hurdles, all the appeals have been lost and the person has been told that they will be removed. How long, on average, does a person wait from that point of being told that they are going to be removed to being removed?
  (Ms Rogers) I am afraid I do not have data off the top of my head.
  (Mrs Tarshish) We have some figures for the length of detention in removal centres if that is what you mean?

  432. That would be helpful.
  (Mrs Tarshish) It might be but the problem is that many people in detention centres, or what are now called removal centres, have been detained from port of entry on arrival and there are not sufficient figures and documentation to know the precise number. I only have anecdotal evidence on that. For example, in one of the groups, it is around 17% who are detained from arrival in the removal centres and they may not have even entered the asylum process at all until they get into the removal centre. So, it is a very complicated description that would be needed to help you to identify what stage they are at.

  433. Would either or both of you agree that there are actually very long delays between the final decision and removal actually taking place and have you any views as to what causes that gap?
  (Mrs Tarshish) We have from our visitors—remember that this is anecdotal, so we do not know whether it is the tip of an iceberg or all that there are—that the usual problems seem to be travel documents, lack of available seats on flights, some really very practical problems, and sometimes—and this seems to be very rare—with identity and nationality.

  434. So you are aware, going back to the previous set of questions, of people at that stage, the removal stage, showing some dissent as to which nationality they are.
  (Mrs Tarshish) I said rarely, so I think I can only actually think of one or two.

  435. We were told that there was no evidence at all.
  (Mrs Tarshish) Rarely.

  436. We will go as far as rarely then.
  (Mrs Tarshish) Very rarely.
  (Ms Rogers) Can I come in on this point. I think there are certainly delays. Some of those delays are in relation to particular countries. There are some countries that the UK find it very difficult to remove people to. That is (1) because of documentation or (2) because we do not currently have very good relations with that country or we do not have direct flights. There is also, however, evidence that people are being detained for very long periods of time which are, in certain cases, wholly unjustified. The subject of detention I know will come up but one has to look at the necessity of detaining in those circumstances.

  437. Why is it unjustified?
  (Ms Rogers) If there is no prospect of removal, I cannot see how detention can be justified.

  438. I will come back to that point in a moment. What do you think the Home Office is doing in terms of informing you or the legal representatives about the progress of a case? Do you think that the Home Office gives you enough information as to how a case is progressing and is there any way that that might be improved? We are talking now about the stage when all the appeals have been negative and we are waiting for removal.
  (Ms Rogers) What I am concerned about and my organisation is concerned about is practices by the Home Office of not giving information to representatives or to individuals because they fear that the individual will abscond, not necessarily on any assessment of that individual, just on the general basis of, "We fear people will abscond if we tell them information, so we will not tell them." What our members find is that, time after time, people are being detained pending removal when they go and sign on, when they have been signing on regularly and in conformity with the law or they are taken from their homes without due notice. Representatives then find it very difficult to find out where the person is taken to and what steps are being taken and our experience is that communication between representatives and the Immigration Service is extremely poor at the point of removal and that in itself can then lead to delays.

  439. How many people are taken from their homes?
  (Ms Rogers) You would have to ask the Immigration Service how many people but, in my experience, large numbers are taken from their homes. What one has seen in the recent past is that the Immigration Service targets what we would call soft targets, families who will be at home, rather than the young male asylum seeker who has failed all his claims because he will not necessarily be sitting at home waiting from the Immigration Service. I have concern about the method of detaining families in particular pending removal. They may well be a very well-established family in the sense that they have been in the country for some time and an immigration officer arrives at the door and they are given literally moments to pack up their lives. That can be very, very distressing and the people that I have met in detention post that happening to them are extremely distressed. It will cause delay in the long run in removal because distressed people are unlikely to co-operate or may not co-operate in the future and it is understandable. If people feel that their lives are still not closed, as it were, that they have not had the opportunity of closing that book, coming to terms with what is going to happen to them and moving on, then they may have cause to try and prolong their stay here.