{"id":162505,"date":"2015-06-29T00:51:28","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T00:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=162505"},"modified":"2015-06-29T00:52:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T00:52:05","slug":"unlawful-structurally-unfair-fast-track-asylum-system-scrapped-court-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/unlawful-structurally-unfair-fast-track-asylum-system-scrapped-court-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unlawful, structurally unfair\u2019 fast-track asylum system scrapped in Court of Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Britain\u2019s Court of Appeal has suspended the controversial detained fast-track (DFT) system, which imprisons thousands of asylum seekers each year while they appeal rulings.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"background-color: initial;\">The High Court ruled the<br \/>\nprocess was unlawful on June 12, but put a \u201c<em>legal stay<\/em>\u201d<br \/>\non the decision, meaning the fast-track system remained in<br \/>\noperation until government had exhausted attempts to<br \/>\nappeal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>However, the Court of Appeal quashed the legal stay on Friday,<br \/>\nruling the DFT must end immediately.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FN_6KtCX0Wk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><br \/>\nDetention in Action, a campaign group supporting detained asylum<br \/>\nseekers, challenged the government in court over the legality of<br \/>\ndetained fast-track.The government had argued DFT was fair because asylum seekers<br \/>\nwere entitled to appeal for a 10-day adjournment before a final<br \/>\ndecision on their case was made.<\/p>\n<p>However, High Court Justice Nicol said this had a <em>\u201cvery<br \/>\nlimited role\u201d<\/em> in ensuring a just outcome and therefore ruled<br \/>\nthe system was illegal.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/uk\/241053-asylum-seeker-harmondsworth-demands\/\" target=\"_blank\">READ MORE: \u2018Treat us like humans\u2019: Asylum seekers<br \/>\nissue Harmondsworth hunger strike demands<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the High Court ruling, the judge said: \u201c<em>In my judgment the<br \/>\nFast Track Rules (FTR) do incorporate structural unfairness. They<br \/>\nput the appellant at a serious procedural disadvantage<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The appellant is always detained and, as is obvious, the<br \/>\nfact of detention places additional obstacles in the way of<br \/>\nachieving all that has to be done before a tribunal hearing.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>What seems to me to make the FTR structurally unfair is the<br \/>\nserious procedural disadvantage, which comes from the abbreviated<br \/>\ntimetable and curtailed case management powers<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DFT was highlighted as an unfair system by a detained Pakistani<br \/>\nasylum seeker RT spoke with earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/uk\/265732-yarls-wood-detention-improvements\/\" target=\"_blank\">READ MORE: Yarl\u2019s Wood detainee reports better<br \/>\ntreatment since protests (VIDEO)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Chowdery (not his real name) told RT the detained fast-track<br \/>\nsystem has \u201c<em>been discredited in the courts and must be<br \/>\nabolished<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Responding to the Court of Appeals decision on Friday, Detention<br \/>\nAction director Jerome Phelps said: \u201c<em>We are delighted that<br \/>\nasylum seekers will no longer face a detained appeals process<br \/>\nthat is so unfair as to be unlawful.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>It is unfortunate that it has taken so many court rulings to<br \/>\nfinally suspend this deeply flawed process.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>People seeking protection from war and persecution deserve<br \/>\nbetter from British justice. We hope that the government will<br \/>\ntake this opportunity to reflect and develop a different approach<br \/>\nthat is fair<\/em>,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Go to www.addthis.com\/dashboard to customize your tools --><br \/>\n<!-- Share template --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Go to your Addthis.com Dashboard to update any options --><\/p>\n<p>This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/rt.com\/uk\/270010-detained-fast-track-illegal\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain\u2019s Court of Appeal has suspended the controversial detained fast-track (DFT) system, which imprisons thousands of asylum seekers each year while they appeal rulings. The High Court ruled the process was unlawful on June 12, but put a \u201clegal stay\u201d on the decision, meaning the fast-track system remained in operation until government had exhausted attempts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-162505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}