Asylum

David Leonard BL explores internal relocation in the context of EU asylum law. Internal relocation is governed by EU law. Article 8 of the Qualification Directive states that Member States may rely on it. Is it discretionary? Transposing Article 8 to allow reliance on internal protection is discreti

UK government plans to address the asylum claim backlog by asking around 12,000 applicants to complete a new questionnaire risks introducing "more injustice" into the asylum seeker, human rights campaigners have warned. According to reports, the Home Office is to begin sending an 11-page questionnai

Ukrainian refugees in Ireland will benefit from a 12-month extension to their temporary protection permissions, the government has announced. Some 75,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine have been granted temporary protection in Ireland since 9 March 2022. Each permission is granted for a period of

Northern Ireland’s High Court has dismissed an application for judicial review where an applicant who had exhausted his asylum appeals was denied a government-issued card which included identifying details. The applicant, a 29-year-old man originally from Somalia, had been seeking asylum in th

The UK government's plan to deport migrants to Rwanda is lawful, the High Court in London has ruled. The court ruled yesterday that the scheme did not fall foul of the UN's Refugee Convention on human rights laws.

Stephen Kirwan explores the potential impact of the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Camara v Belgium on the approach of the Irish authorities to the accommodation of international protection applicants. In the first case of its kind, the European Court of Human Rights recently gran

The Immigrant Council of Ireland has joined calls on the government to provide clarity to those who applied for the Afghan admissions programme and have not yet received a decision. Only a small number of approvals have been issued under the Afghan admission programme despite 528 applications being

A scheme designed to bring 500 people from Afghanistan to Ireland has been criticised after the first tranche of just 22 approvals was issued nearly a year after it was set up.

Children's rights experts have called on the Home Office to end the use of hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers in Northern Ireland. The Children's Law Centre and South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) issued a joint statement after Belfast South MP Claire Hanna raised concerns ab

Judges must verify on their own initiative that migrants and asylum seekers are being detained lawfully, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled. The court today handed down its judgment in a case referred by the Netherlands Council of State and the District Court of The Hague, w

The High Court has quashed a decision by the International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) which refused international protection to a Muslim man who claimed to be persecuted for working in the beef trade in India. The man was previously attacked by cow vigilantes who wanted him to stop his work

Nearly 86,000 asylum applications remain outstanding more than six months after having been submitted to UK authorities, according to new figures. The latest statistics from the Home Office show there are 85,917 outstanding cases, with the number of asylum decisions still below pre-pandemic levels.

The UK government must reveal more passages of internal documents assessing the human rights situation in Rwanda which were drawn up before ministers adopted a controversial asylum policy, a court has ruled. Lawyers acting for foreign secretary Liz Truss had asked the High Court to grant public inte

A minor's application for asylum cannot be rejected as inadmissible on the grounds that their parents have already been granted asylum in another EU member state, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled. The court this week delivered its judgment in a case concerning a Russian gi

A government decision to suspend the visa exemption for refugees travelling to Ireland from other European countries has been slammed as "shameful". Ministers yesterday agreed to suspend the operation of the European Agreement on the Abolition of Visas for Refugees from today for at least 12 months.