UKBA admits paying out millions to settle unlawful detention compensation claims
The Home Office paid out more than £11 million in 2010 to settle compensation claims brought by asylum seekers and other migrants, it was revealed this week, including cases of torture survivors and other vulnerable individuals held unlawfully in immigration removal centres. A "contingency" of £4 million has been set aside for this year specifically to settle further unlawful compensation claims.
Keith Best, Chief Executive of Freedom from Torture said:
"Freedom from Torture has long been concerned about such failures in the system given our first-hand experience of the large number of torture survivors who are detained by the UK Border Agency despite an explicit policy that they should not be detained except in 'very exceptional circumstances'. For those people who have undergone an unimaginable ordeal, escaped their torture and sought refuge in the UK, being met with detention here carries a very high risk of re-traumatising them.
"UKBA needs to fix these problems and stop detaining survivors, not be preparing to pour more public money into settling claims for unlawful detention.
"The flaws in the system are abundantly clear: we need an improved asylum screening process to prevent vulnerable people being routed into detention; stronger guidance for UKBA decision-makers on what constitutes 'very exceptional circumstances' - so they can remain in keeping with their own policy - and the remedying of the chronically dysfunctional" process for reviewing the immigration detention of individuals who claim they are survivors of torture".
In March this year, the UK Border Agency published a long-awaited audit of this "Rule 35" process which stated that in 91 per cent of cases where "Rule 35" forms were filed by UKBA-appointed medical practitioners in detention centres, the individuals were not released, but failed to offer any explanation as to why these decisions were taken. At the time, Freedom from Torture expressed dismay at the inadequacies of the audit – the results of which had been suppressed for over a year since the review was completed – and publicly called on the Parliamentary Home Affairs Committee to launch an inquiry into unlawful detention.
This week, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, said:
I think it is totally unacceptable that the UK Border Agency can have paid out millions of pounds in compensation and legal costs in respect of the asylum and immigration system. What it shows is that they are detaining people without proper cause, which ends up with the taxpayer having to bear the burden."
Freedom from Torture's Keith Best added:
"It is clear that in order to stop both the unlawful detention of migrants including torture survivors and the spiralling costs of payouts, there is an urgent need to investigate the systemic failings of policy and practice giving rise to these problems and agree a robust action plan for addressing them."
