Access to justice campaigners speak out
Article published: Saturday, July 30th 2011
Asylum seekers and human rights activists have submitted a formal letter laying out their concerns over the handling of the collapse of the UK’s largest charitable provider of immigration legal aid. The statement was presented last Thursday, 60 years to the day since the United Nations approved the status of refugees in international law.
Campaigners from the newly formed group Access to Justice handed over the letter detailing their fears regarding the demise of the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) directly to the Manchester offices of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), the government body responsible for legal aid.
The charity, which was responsible for 80 per cent of publicly funded asylum and immigration cases in Manchester, went into administration without warning two weeks ago. Around 8,000 live cases across the country, including those of 1,242 unaccompanied children and 385 cases with immanent appeals, have been left without legal advice and representation as a result according to LSC figures.
Former IAS caseworker Ed Mynott told Mule how “very distressed” former clients had been left with “very little accurate information” following the closure, adding that the first most IAS employees themselves learned of the closure was when they arrived at work to find a notice pinned to the door. People remaining within the charity while it undergoes administration have been gagged from discussing urgent cases with their clients, he said, while some had not even been informed that it had closed.
Additionally, campaigners say some immigration tribunal judges are continuing to encourage people to “pursue their appeals unrepresented” despite assurances from the LSC that it was working with “Judiciary and [UK Border Agency] colleagues in order to secure a sensitive approach” to adjournment requests.
In an earlier statement regarding the collapse, the LSC had said that it was “identifying alternative advice provision in the areas affected”, with the priority being “cases which are due in court now or in the next few weeks, so that we can achieve case transfer as quickly and effectively as possible”. On Thursday 21 July it was announced that transfer of urgent case files had started, with a spokesperson saying that the process would be completed “in the next few days”.
But Mynott said campaigners had deep concerns over how the handover was being administered, telling Mule “we fear its being done according to bureaucratic convenience rather than what’s good for the client”. One specific worry was whether cases may be transferred to providers outside the Manchester area, as large numbers of asylum applicants would be unable to afford travel expenses, while other questions revolve around the funding of partially completed cases.
Vice chair of the human rights charity RAPAR, Iranian refugee Zohreh Golmakani, spoke of the fear many asylum applicants had been thrown into by being left without representation. She said one woman with a five month old baby had been told that IAS had closed her case, despite an upcoming final hearing, while an older Iranian man in his 40’s had been “left crying” due to now having to attend his hearing without a solicitor to guide him through a complex and unfamiliar legal system.
Commenting on the collapse, government minister Jonathan Djanogly said trustees of the charity had decided to fold despite ongoing negotiations with the LSC over serious financial issues including the mis-claiming of “several millions” of public funds. But Mynott was blunt in his assessment of what other factors pushed IAS over the edge: an impending 10 per cent cut in fees and removal of non-asylum immigration cases in the government’s upcoming legal aid bill had led trustees to “throw up their hands and throw in the towel”.
Mynott also said that funding rules introduced under the last government had concentrated provision into the hands of a few large organisations, with disastrous results as they become vulnerable to cuts. The fall of IAS, just one year after the closure of similarly large provider Refugee and Migrant Justice, showed in his view “the severe drawbacks of a market system” that caused “much greater levels of disruption” and costs to the taxpayer if they collapsed. He added that “after the emergency we need to ensure there’s a fair and proper allocation” of funds, saying this would be “fundamentally a political issue because of the upcoming bill”.
The LSC informed campaigners that they were grateful they had submitted their concerns, and would be issuing a formal response within seven days.
Richard Goulding
Comments
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Let’s face it.
A charity which depends on government funds for its existence is not a real charity at all, just a part of the state that can be abolished at any time.
There’s been no ‘collapse’, merely a change of policy by the elected government.
Comment by simon on August 4, 2011 at 2:04 am -
simon #
Is there a reason you read this paper?
I have yet to hear you support anything at all it stands for.
CM
Comment by CM on August 11, 2011 at 7:52 pm
The comments are closed.
