Refugee Action's Access to Justice project finds 64% of the asylum seekers it saw had been wrongly refused a legal aid lawyer for their asylum appeal
Refugee Action has published a report following research carried out for its Access to Justice Project.
The Access to Justice Project was a twelve month project aimed to help asylum seekers refused Controlled Legal Representation (CLR) to challenge the refusal and, if successful, to find new legal representatives.
According to Refugee Action, the project shockingly discovered that 64% of the asylum seekers it saw had been wrongly refused a legal aid lawyer for their asylum appeal – a crucial stage in the asylum process.
Refugee Action says that its project also uncovered significant problems with the quality and availability of legal advice for asylum seekers. Some clients received very poor quality advice at the pre-appeal stages of their asylum claim. Others found it difficult to find any legal representation at all.
You can read the full Refugee Action report here.
In concluding, the report states: "Working with the asylum system to improve the protection the UK offers can feel like an extremely rocky and uphill path. As fast as one rock is navigated, another reappears. What Access to Justice has done with some success is to spot one of these rocks, highlighted its effect and enabled a few people to step over it. It has also shown in the process the importance of doing frontline work which is able to identify the problems where they arise and shine a light on how the current system is affecting the lives of human beings seeking asylum in the UK today."