Immigration control laws required pre-entry clearance of visitors. To do so it imposed carriers’ liability without which, the requirement for prior entry clearance would have little effect: ‘What, then, is it which is said to justify placing these burdens, and most notably ICLA, upon carriers? The answer is said to be the imperative needs of immigration control in the face of ever-growing pressures from around the world. This too is deposed to in great detail by the respondent and once again I shall simplify it. In 1986 there was a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers, in particular from the Indian subcontinent and West Africa. In the result the visa requirement was extended to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana and Nigeria. ICLA was passed as a necessary adjunct of the visa regime and, more generally, to complement immigration control and facilitate procedures at the port of entry. As the then Home Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, made plain at the second reading of the Bill in March 1987, it was intended to ‘make it much more difficult for those who want to come to this country, but who have no valid grounds for doing so . . It is also intended to stop abuse of asylum procedures by preventing people travelling here without valid documents and then claiming asylum before they can be returned’.
The logical necessity for carriers’ liability to support a visa regime is surely self-evident. Why require visas from certain countries (and in particular those from which most bogus asylum seekers are found to come) unless visa nationals can be prevented from reaching our shores? Their very arrival here otherwise entitles them to apply for asylum and thus defeats the visa regime. Without ICLA there would be little or no disincentive for carriers to bring them.’
Judges:
Simon Brown LJ
Citations:
[1999] EuLR 595, [1999] EWHC Admin 95, [1999] INLR 591
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – European Roma Rights Centre and others v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and Another CA 20-May-2003
A scheme had been introduced to arrange pre-entry clearance for visitors to the United Kingdom by posting of immigration officers in the Czech Republic. The claimants argued that the system was discriminatory, because Roma visitors were now . .
Cited – European Roma Rights Centre and others v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and Another CA 20-May-2003
A scheme had been introduced to arrange pre-entry clearance for visitors to the United Kingdom by posting of immigration officers in the Czech Republic. The claimants argued that the system was discriminatory, because Roma visitors were now . .
Cited – Regina v Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and another, ex parte European Roma Rights Centre and others HL 9-Dec-2004
Extension oh Human Rights Beyond Borders
The appellants complained that the system set up by the respondent where Home Office officers were placed in Prague airport to pre-vet applicants for asylum from Romania were dsicriminatory in that substantially more gypsies were refused entry than . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Immigration
Updated: 28 May 2022; Ref: scu.139359