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UK: Straw overruled again in application of Dublin Convention

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01 March 2001

On 12 March, the Government's most recent plans to reduce the number of asylum applications by returning refugees straight back to other countries in the EU as set out in the Dublin Convention, was declared unlawful by the UK Court of Appeal. In a test?case judgement, the senior judges ruled that the UK would violate the principle of individual case examination if it was to introduce the practice of blanket return of asylum seekers arriving from other EU member states. The decision related to the appeal of Barjam Zeqiri, a Kosovan Albanian. It will make it more difficult for the government in the light of other recent rulings declaring Germany and France “unsafe” (see Statewatch Vol 9 no 5 and Vol 11 no 1), to automatically return asylum seekers at the borders. After French president Jacques Chirac had already rejected British proposals of “summary deportations” of asylum seekers arriving at Kent ports at the Anglo?French Summit on the 9 February, this recent decision has dealt another blow to the government's “pre?election jitters over asylum”.

Evening Standard 12.3.01; Guardian 6.2.01; Times 9.2.01