My first encounter with the importance of a much deeper and wider knowledge of decisions in cases and factual backgrounds which could have an impact on immigration appeals, with which I had become involved as an adjudicator way back in 1979, was when I was dished out with the limited material I was supposed to use in order to make decisions which could affect the lives and futures of whole families.
Mark Patey and I worked on the Home Office to improve its country background material and, when we started getting asylum appeals, to persuade it to do a bit better and make the information public so that we had a little more on which to base decisions. It was still pretty minimal as a result of which Victor Callender and I arranged to be part of a pilot scheme with UNHCR in connection with its databases Refcas, Refworld and so on. At the time Sharon Rusu (Professor Guy Goodwin Gill's wife) was in charge of this development in Geneva. Later on we also passed on our own decisions to Zahir Chaudhury so he could use them in his own early collections.
The IAA was very dependent on what the representatives could access and lay before us. This became, as I have said, crucial to a 'good' decision when the bulk of the appeals concerned asylum and human rights issues and the appellants were from every region of the world.
It was in this context that I first encountered others such as Fin Jensen, Keith Best, Manjit Singh, John Dean, Les Mugridge, Mark Symes, Mark Henderson and many others in 1997 who were intent on creating a database, an electronic immigration network, the EIN, first of case law, later of country information, a Directory of Experts and then dealing with training, introducing HeadlEINs, a Queries Bulletin Board and in 2001 a Book Prize.
I have followed the progress of EIN which is a story of determination, professionalism and I am pleased to say success. I am just a little puzzled why over the years attendance at the AGM has fallen so dramatically: I cannot believe that it is because its value is not appreciated as much so I would urge those who do value and use it to come out and demonstrate their support at gatherings such as the AGM – it lends encouragement to those whose efforts make it all happen.
I was given and wanted to include a potted history of the EIN in my book Migrants and the Courts: A Century of Trial and Error? (published by Ashgate last November) but available space left room for little more than a couple of paragraphs (chapter 4 Getting the Facts; Interpreting the Evidence, Credibility pages 138-139). It did not do justice to all EIN has achieved but it does reveal the cooperation with some judges both in the UK and Germany and it forms an essential part of the chapter which covers a whole range from facts to representation.
Decisions – in any sphere – can only be as good as the quality of the information given to the decision maker, whether the decision maker is a Home Office official or a judge and however bright he or she is.
That is essentially what the book Migrants and the Courts is about and it is also what EIN plays an important role in helping achieve.