British Home Office wins Zimbabwe deportation case

By Tichaona Sibanda

2 August 2006

Over 15 000 failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe face immediate deportation from the UK after the Home Office Wednesday won the right to send them back home. The Home Office indicated soon after the judgement that enforced returns to Zimbabwe could be as early as next week. Steve Simmons, a solicitor from the refugee legal centre who was representing Zimbabweans, has advised all failed asylum seekers to seek legal advice from their lawyers.

Following a lengthy legal battle, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) said there was not an automatic risk that Zimbabweans returned to Robert Mugabe’s regime would face a ‘real risk of being subjected to persecution or serious ill-treatment.’

The judgement delivered by Justice Hodge in London is final and will now act as country guideline for Zimbabweans seeking refugee status in the UK. According to Harris Nyatsanza, a Zimbabwean human rights activist, there would be no other avenue for Zimbabweans to appeal against this decision.

In his six page judgement, Justice Hodge said: ‘Each case must be considered on its own facts, stating further that asylum-seekers being sent back would not automatically face a real risk being subjected to persecution or serious ill-treatment, so the Government can still make decisions on deportation on a case-by-case basis.’

The ruling focused on whether Zimbabweans returning to Mugabe’s brutal regime would face torture or persecution. In a statement after the verdict Liam Byrne the Immigration Minister said he was ‘pleased’ because the verdict enabled the Government to uphold ‘a robust and fair system.’

‘We recognise that there are Zimbabweans who are in genuine fear of persecution and that is why we have granted them asylum, but it is only right that we remove those who seek to abuse our hospitality,’ he said.

However according to Nyatsanza who was in court during the judgement, Justice Hodge set out a number of guidelines in his ruling indicating which deportees would be at risk in Zimbabwe.

Deportees linked with Zimbabwean opposition parties or with military or criminal records may be at greater danger of serious mistreatment by Zimbabwean authorities, the ruling said.

‘If you have served in the British army, or you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you are an MDC activist, or individuals now based in the UK who have high profile criminal records back home are in this category of individuals who will not be sent back home,’ Nyatsanza.

In October the tribunal threw the Government’s policy on Zimbabwe into doubt after a failed asylum seeker, who can be identified only as AA for legal reasons, won his appeal against the Home Secretary. But that decision was reconsidered after the Court of Appeal ruled in April that the panel had ‘erred in law’ in making its initial decision.