Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Asylum-seekers put at risk by law, warns top judge / Independent, 2 July 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-laws-are-threat-to-judicial-independence-858323.html
Robert Verkaik
"Labour's tough stance on immigration may have forced courts to send asylum-seekers back to their home countries to face "torture or death", one of the most senior judges in England and Wales has warned. Lord Justice Sedley, a Court of Appeal judge, accuses the Government of threatening the independence of the judiciary by imposing a rule that obliges judges to dismiss an asylum-seeker's story if that refugee has fled their home country using a false passport. Sir Stephen Sedley, writing in the London Review of Books, warns that such a measure "is a serious invasion of judicial independence".