It has emerged that UK Home Secretary Theresa May failed to comply with a High Court order compelling her to bring back an asylum seeker now located in Azerbaijan. The man, a Turkish national, was forcibly removed from the UK - even though a court order was in place which should have prevented his removal.
Lawyers for the man maintain that he should never have been removed as he wished to claim asylum but was not permitted to do so. The man in question is a human rights activist and said he was jailed and tortured in Turkey. He maintains he is in fear of his life if he returns to Turkey.
His solicitor James Packer of Duncan Lewis commented that his client had been threatened at Stansted airport and was asked to withdraw his application for asylum. His solicitor stated “he signed the document under pressure of threat of detention. I made it quite clear to UK Border Agency that my client did want to claim asylum. They were at best obstructive and refused to listen. They seemed determined to remove him in any event.”
A UK Border Agency spokesperson commented “We are disappointed that this man has won the right to have his asylum claim heard in the UK, despite choosing to leave the country voluntarily. We will now consider his claim carefully before making a decision as to whether he requires international protection.”
Click here to read an article on the case by the Guardian.
Meanwhile, the UK Upper Tribunal has found that a Secretary of State decision to deport was not justified. Raed Mahajna v Secretary of State for the Home Department concerns an appeal against the decision of the First-Tier Tribunal. The First-Tier Tribunal held that the applicant should be deported as his presence in the United Kingdom was contrary to the public good and that the interference was proportionate. The appellant is Palestinian and a prominent figure in Israel and leader of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement. He had visited the United Kingdom on a number of occasions where he delivered presentations at conferences and meetings. He attended a meeting and was arrested with a notice of detention to deport him as he had written a poem which allegedly sought to provoke others to terrorist acts and this was taken to be unacceptable behaviour and contrary to the public good.
The Upper Tribunal held on appeal that a Tribunal would have to take a more “interventionalist approach” on statutory appeal as this case was brought under section 84(1) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 as opposed to a judicial review. Therefore, it stated that it would not be against subjecting the express views of the Home Secretary “to proper examination in the light of the circumstances in which those views were reached, and the material upon which they were reached; and it may have to decide the extent to which it can give to those views the weight that would be properly and usually attributed to them.”
The Upper Tribunal found against the First-Tier Tribunal’s decision in that the poem attributed to Mr.Mahajna could not be relied upon as unacceptable behaviour as the Home Secretary made reference to “an inaccurate translation.” The poem was not addressed to “You Jews” but rather aimed at “Oppressors” in general.
The Tribunal found that only some of the appellant’s comments would justify his deportation and that the other factors such as his poem should not have influenced the Secretary of State in making her decision. The Tribunal referred to the decisions in the cases Naik and GW v SSHD where “the individual in question had a clear agenda in his public pronouncements that was pervasive and potentially offensive or dangerous.” Therefore, it was held that “the inference with Mr Mahajna’s Article 10 rights was disproportionate was inevitable.”
Click here to see the full judgment.
Click here to see a piece by the UK Human Rights Blog on the case.