Lawyer says no deportations of failed asylum seekers taking place in UK

By Lance Guma
09 November 2006

A lawyer working with asylum seekers in the United Kingdom has moved to quell speculation that massive deportations of failed asylum seekers are taking place quietly away from the public glare. In an interview on Thursday, Newsreel was told that failed asylum seekers have been granted permission to take their case to the Court of Appeal where they are trying to get Zimbabwe declared an ‘unsafe destination.’ Although the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) ruled in August this year that deportees did not face ‘automatic risk’ the failed claimant in the case, referred to only as AA, has appealed and this means the matter is yet to be concluded.

What has added to the confusion however is the fact that ‘Zimbabweans’ who went into the UK on Malawian passports, those who have overstayed their visas and others in jail for criminal offences are not covered by the temporary amnesty. If the Malawian embassy in the United Kingdom certifies that a passport being held is genuine then any other document the ‘Zimbabweans’ are producing will not be considered the lawyer explained. It is these deportations that are at the centre of the confusion. The appeal by ‘AA is likely to be finalised by the 19 th December according to press reports.

Yeukai Taruvinga a failed asylum seeker, who is also a member of the radical Free-Zim Youth UK, told Newsreel that the standard of legal representation let them down in their applications. She called on the UK Home Office to allow them to lodge fresh applications using competent lawyers, saying this would make a big difference. Taruvinga says they are getting a raw deal from the legal process in terms of time and meanwhile their lives are in limbo. ‘We are not allowed to work,’ she explained, ‘and we are not getting any money from the state to survive.’

Sarah Harland from the Zimbabwe Association told the New Zimbabwe.com website on Tuesday that, ‘Permission has been granted to appeal, and we should expect that to be done before December 19. It will be on very technical grounds and on points of law. The issue is whether the tribunal came to the correct decision in August. Until the appeal is heard, and a decision handed down, no Zimbabweans on Zimbabwean passports should be detained or deported.’ She estimates that there are between 15 and 20 failed asylum seekers in detention and that some of these entered the country on Malawian passports while some have just completed prison sentences.