New Clause 7 - Interpretation of Refugee Convention
Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill
10:00 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
The new clause deals with something that I confess I did not know was the case until my hon. Friend the Member for Woking mentioned it from the Front Bench during one of our earlier sittings. The word ''directly'' in the refugee convention does not mean what most people would assume it means. Article 31 refers to
''refugees . . . coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened''.
It seems to me that the natural meaning of ''directly'' is ''without making landfall in another place''. Yet, for some reason—I have not checked why—the courts have determined that ''directly'' does not have what most of us would regard as its natural meaning, but that the meaning it carries allows asylum claimants to go through one or more countries, which may be safe countries, on their way to this country. The purpose of the new clause is to find out why the Government think that is an acceptable interpretation of the word ''directly'' in the context of article 31.
If I had done my homework a little earlier, we would be talking about the rest of the convention as well. Article 31 refers only to the application of penalties to people who have not arrived directly, and I suspect that what is far more important in the eyes of most of our constituents is eligibility for asylum when people have not arrived directly, but have come indirectly through a safe country such as France. The Minister might tell me that the usual meaning of ''directly''
applies in the case of eligibility for asylum but simply does not apply in the case of article 31. However, the new clause relates to article 31.
Obviously, to make the new clause stand up, I have had to give a definition of a safe country. It may not be perfect, but the purpose of the new clause is to probe the Minister's and the Government's thinking. If the Minister finds the existing definition unacceptable, why have the Government not sought to redefine ''directly'' in a way that most of us would find acceptable? If the Minister finds the definition acceptable, perhaps she could explain why the Government think it is acceptable that people who have left a country where they have a justifiable fear of persecution should come through a country such as Italy, France or Belgium and not claim asylum there, but then be eligible for asylum in this country, or be ineligible for penalties for arriving without documentation, or with false documentation.