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Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
6:15 pm
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)
Yes, should they choose to. However, I restate that in the context of all the appeals that we have in this country, that proportion of cases is extremely small. We are concerned today with what we can do within the context of the Bill. Our arrangements with our European partners and our international obligations are matters that the House can revisit. Indeed, other Ministers in other Departments can deal with them. I have already said that I will not get into a discussion about Europe. That is subject to our treaty arrangements and the Bill is not concerned with that. It is possible to petition and to take cases to the ECJ. For those purposes, what the hon. Member for Isle of Wight suggested is right.
Amendment No. 65 would make the opinion of the appellate court binding on the tribunal. There was some discussion of that this morning. The hon. Member for Woking pressed for reasons why we could not simply make the determination of the Court of Appeal binding. He made some forceful arguments. I will consider them and come back to the Committee. [Interruption.] Forgive me, the hon. Member for Winchester made the same point. Amendment No. 66 would introduce the right of appeal effectively back up to the House of Lords. Again, that is what we seek to limit. For the reasons that I have given, I am unable to
accept the amendments but I am willing to look again at amendment No. 65 and the ability to bind the decision of the Court of Appeal.
Government amendments Nos. 108, 109 and 112 deal with the bad faith exception to the judicial review ouster. Government amendment No. 108 clarifies the bad faith exception and introduces a new subsection (3A), which provides that a court may consider whether a member of the tribunal has acted in bad faith only if satisfied that significant evidence has been adduced of dishonesty, corruption or bias. The concept of bad faith is a familiar phrase in case law and common law. It is appropriate to clarify what it means in this context. That will make clearer in what circumstances the decisions of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal could be questioned in the courts. The Government do not want bad faith by the tribunal to go unremedied, but sustained efforts may be made to dress up lesser grievances than bad faith to win the extra time it takes for a court to consider the point.