32. Memorandum submitted by
Dr Peter Le Feuvre
PROPOSALS OF
27 OCTOBER 2003 ON
ASYLUM APPLICATIONS
I am a General Medical Practitioner with 18
years experience. For the last four and a half years, I have worked
exclusively with asylum seekers arriving in Kent and long term
refugees living in Dover and Margate.
These views are my own.
I am concerned that it is proposed to make it
more difficult for an asylum application to succeed if the applicant
is not in the possession of travel documents upon arrival in the
UK.
For many countries in the world, the possession
of a passport is considered to be a privilege and not a right.
Repressive governments may well not be willing to issue passports
to groups or individuals who they wish to persecute. Thus many
people fleeing persecution may not have access to a passport.
Others, while facing persecution, may not have the time or ability
to apply for a passport. These people will thus be obliged to
flee their countries without valid documents. They may be obliged
to buy false documents from agents, and these agents may insist
that they accompany the applicant on the journey. Immigration
officers of the countries from where the applicants are fleeing
may well accept bribes.
All of the above circumstances may result in
an applicant, genuinely fleeing persecution, arriving at a UK
airport without "appropriate documentation". It has
long been a principle of UK asylum policy that the absence of
legal travel documentation does not influence the claim for asylum.
The new proposals bring this to an end and will result in people
fleeing persecution being penalised for a circumstance over which
they have no control. The new proposals appear to have no safeguards
for the people described above.
The implementation of Section 55 of the 2002
NIA Act has brought untold suffering to scores of genuine refugees
through hasty legislation and harsh implementation. I witness
this at first hand on a daily basis.
I urge the Committee to remember the Government's
obligations under the 1951 Convention and to bear in mind that
it has a moral and legal duty towards foreign nationals fleeing
persecution.
November 2003
| 
