Government's moves to make asylum seekers destitute - Liberty, JCWI & others prepare legal challenge

As of tomorrow, Wednesday 8th January, thousands of asylum seekers will face destitution - by law. Section 55 of the Government's Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act comes into effect, and will remove their rights to housing, food and money tokens because they will be deemed to have made 'late' claims.

Liberty is now preparing a legal challenge against this disgraceful policy, supported by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Refugee Council and other refugee welfare groups. We will ask the High Court to rule the government's plan to make people destitute incompatible with our fundamental human right not to be subject to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights). Many of those affected will have entirely legitimate claims - yet they will be condemned to vagrancy before their cases even begin to be considered.

Shami Chakrabarti, the Liberty lawyer leading this case, says:
"The government must rethink. Politicians can argue about statistics all they like; but the cruelty of condemning people to hunger and homelessness in this way should be inconceivable in a civilised country like the UK.

"The government's decision to slip this measure through shows an appalling disregard for the value of human life. How it imagines that forcing more people on to the streets will solve any of the real problems in its bureaucratic asylum system is beyond rational comprehension".

Tauhid Pasha, Legal, Policy and Information Director at JCWI, says:
"Section 55 of the new Act is a throw-back to the actions of the Conservative government in 1996 when potentially tens of thousands of asylum seekers were left completely destitute without a roof over their heads and no means of support. JCWI successfully challenged the government in the High Court on that occasion.

"The government clearly intends that those who have no other means of support will not be allowed to support themselves through work or self-employment. In the absence of resources from these means it is clear that destitution will be an immediate and direct consequence of the government's measures".


Margaret Lally, Deputy Chief Executive of the Refugee Council says:
"We are absolutely appalled by these new government measures which will throw thousands of asylum seekers into destitution and add to the chaos in the asylum system. In partnership with Liberty and other organisations we are prepared to take this issue to the courts".