Clause 2 - Entering United Kingdom without passport
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Edward Garnier (Harborough, Conservative)
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome wants to delete quite a large chunk of subsection (5). Up to a point, I can see that that is not unreasonable—if I can use that adjective. If the passage in subsection (5)(b)(i), which reads
''delaying the handling or resolution of a claim or application or the taking of a decision,''
were to be permitted, it would amount to abuse of process. I cannot believe that any court would allow an abuse of process defence to destroy its purpose. To place the argument in context, the subsection says that, for the purpose of a defence under the earlier subsections,
''the fact that a document was deliberately destroyed is not a reasonable excuse for not being in possession of it, unless it is shown that the destruction was . . . for a reasonable cause''.
Paragraph (b) states that
'''reasonable cause' does not include the purpose of . . . delaying the handling or resolution of a claim or application or the taking of a decision''.
That hardly surprises me. I do not know that we need to have it spelled out that anyone who abuses the process—which, by implication, he must have accepted by making the application for asylum in the first place—and abuses the court system by which he wants his claim to be handled or judged, and then says that that amounts to a reasonable cause, is wrong. I agree with the hon. Gentleman to the extent that we do not need paragraph (b)(i).