Expect legal challenges to UK deportation policy – barrister

Matondo Mukulu, a UK based Jamaican barrister, is suggesting that legal challenges could be coming to British immigration laws which force persons to leave the United Kingdom before their appeals against deportation are heard.

He is predicting that the policy will be tested because of its far reaching effects.

Mr. Mukulu represents one of the nearly 50 Jamaicans scheduled to arrive in Jamaica on Wednesday, after being removed from the UK.

Speaking Tuesday on RJR’s Beyond the Headlines, he argued that the denial of a right of appeal against deportation until the persons leave the UK is not fair.

Mr. Mukulu, who once acted in the position of Public Defender in Jamaica, said the challenges will come as more cases get into the legal system, “because I don’t think that you will always have a situation where persons who are told you must appeal outside will not have a successful judicial review of that decision.”

There will be a case, he predicted, “showing that appealing outside places you at a distinct disadvantage.”

He added that adjustments are likely to be made to the policy in the future, “when you amass the information… about the success of persons who appeal from outside; that will take some time for the data to come through, not only on the level of success but the quality of representation that can be made, and I think that is the sort of evidence that, for example, the Supreme Court will want to see.”

Arrangements

Meanwhile, Jamaica’s National Security Ministry has announced that arrangements are in place for the arrival of  the deportees from the UK.

They will be met in Kingston by a team, which will comprise police personnel, an officer of  the Foreign Affairs Ministry, as well as representatives of  the National Organisation for Deported Migrants, a non-governmental organisation funded by the British High Commission.
A processing facility has been established at the police Mobile Reserve and a case manager has been assigned to assist in the reintegration process.

A statement from the Ministry of National Security says, having exhausted all legal avenues of  appeal, the returnees have no legal rights in the UK and the Government is obligated, under International law, to receive them.

RJR