Taking a case to the European Court of Human Rights

Even though the HRA has now come into force in the UK it is still possible to make an application to the ECHR. There are three key requirements that you must meet:

1. You must be a victim of a violation of one or more of the articles of the Convention. Generally, this means you must be directly affected by a breach of the Convention. In some cases it will be enough to show you are likely to be affected by a breach or that you belong to a group of people, some of whom are likely to be affected. For example, gay men were permitted to challenge laws that criminalized gay sex even though it was unlikely that the individual applicants would ever be prosecuted because the laws were rarely enforced.

Byrne heralds new balance in migration policy

The Immigration Minister, Liam Byrne, pledged a ‘new balance in migration policy’ during a speech to public servants in Essex today.

Speaking to an audience drawn from key local representatives in education, business and local Government, the Minister set out a 12-month programme of sweeping changes to Britain’s immigration systems and strategy.

Simplifying Immigration Law

Refugee Council response to Simplifying Immigration Law: an initial consultation [August 2007]

In June 2007 the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) issued a consultation document setting out how it plans to proceed with its intention to rationalise immigration legislation. BIA plans to have a further more detailed Consultation at the end of 2007 and to legislate in the autumn of 2008.

Although consolidation of the existing legislation is extremely welcome, and long overdue, it is clear that the government’s intention is to go much further into a process of simplification that seems to be concerned more with speed and ease of processing immigration cases rather than ensuring the protection of refugee and human rights. It is not clear at this stage what the future overall framework will look like and the Refugee Council is urgently seeking more detail prior to the next stage of Consultation. The current concerns are outlined in this response.

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