I am usually underwhelmed by either journos trying to explain migration stuff or lawyers writing about refugee law as if the worst thing that has ever happened is that international law was broken (as opposed to... people got broken). But anyway, I would really recommend reading this article if you would like a good, easy-to -understand precis of the current legal battles over the Refugee Convention itself. I think it is also useful, when we consider the relocation principle and Morrisons treatment of it, or his suggestion that the Convention is somehow being abused, to remember what has been termed the Anne Frank Principle in UK and Australian case law. “… upon the approach suggested by counsel for the [Minister], Anne Frank, terrified as a Jew and hiding for her life in Nazi-occupied Holland, would not be a refugee: if the Tribunal were satisfied that the possibility of her being discovered by the authorities was remote, she would be sent back to live in the attic. It is inconceivable that the framers of the Convention ever did have, or should be imputed to have had, such a result in contemplation.” 107. In this case the Secretary of State argued that had Anne Frank escaped to the United Kingdom, and had it been found (improbably, as the Secretary of State recognised) that on return to Holland she would successfully avoid detection by hiding in the attic, then she would not be at real risk of persecution by the Nazis, and the question would be whether permanent enforced confinement in the attic would itself amount to persecution. Simply to re-state the Secretary of State’s argument shows that it is not possible to characterise it as anything other than absurd and unreal. It is plain that it remains the threat to Jews of the concentration camp and the gas chamber which constitutes the persecution. (para 106 - 107) [2010] UKSC 31 JUDGMENT; HJ (Iran) (FC) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) and one other action HT (Cameroon) (FC) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent)
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 04:31:36 +0000
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