Northern Rock Foundation

Star Projects

March 2014

Collaborating in the refugee and asylum seeker sector:

In 2011 the Foundation invited organisations supporting refugees and asylum seekers to join a Forum. The Forum would meet three times a year to exchange news and to hear about the most pressing issues for service users. One issue that was raised was the lack of provision of a legal service for people who wanted to appeal their asylum decisions.

The Foundation approached two organisations – Newcastle Law Centre and Justice First – to discuss the possibility of providing a service to fill this gap. Whilst the two groups worked together on their proposal, the Foundation worked with Comic Relief and the Baring Foundation to see if together we could provide adequate support for a good quality legal service for asylum seekers on the verge of destitution.

By collaborating in these ways, the new service was launched at the end of 2013 providing a regional pool of well-trained volunteer advisors, supervised by a professional solicitor.

Justice First

Justice First is a Stockton based registered charity which was established in 2006. It aims to relieve poverty, sickness and distress among asylum seekers in the Tees Valley. They help people seeking asylum whose appeals have been rejected by the Home Office to re-engage with the legal system where appropriate, providing advice, guidance and signposting to other relevant services. The organisation has experienced a sharp rise in the number of people who are requesting support since the Implementation of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LAPSO) in April 2013, particularly those seeking protection under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act.

To visit the Justice First website please click here.

Newcastle Law Centre

Newcastle Law Centre is an independent, not for profit, specialist legal practice based in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne. They are a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee offering free, specialist legal advice and assistance to local people, not just in Newcastle upon Tyne but across the whole of the North East of England.

To visit the Newcastle Law Centre website please click here.

Working Together

The right to claim asylum is enshrined in international law. The changes in Legal Aid that were implemented in April 2013 have left many vulnerable people, including asylum seekers, without legal representation. Asylum claims fail for many reasons. Sometimes a person has no reasonable claim and the legal advice is then to help the person understand that s/he has no case and will have to return to his country of origin. In many cases, the initial case is hastily reviewed and the decision is changed on appeal because the original judgement was wrong. In other cases, it may take an asylum seeker some time to recover from torture or rape or documents may have been left behind in the hurry to escape. Once there has been time to discuss their case with a sympathetic advisor, a much more complete picture of the case can be established and the correct advice can be provided.

Newcastle Law Centre and Justice First have developed a Legal Buddy Project which will provide specialist training and workshops for refugees and asylum seekers who require help with an immigration matter. The main areas of work include:

• Borderline appeal cases
• Human rights applications where legal aid is no longer available
• Advice on merits of appeal to First Tier and Upper Tribunals where clients are unrepresented
• Drafting witness statements, or preparing bundles of documents for appeal.

Case Study

Sara (not her real name) was a teacher of Biology in Egypt who was also active in women’s politics within the Democratic Party before the election and campaigned for equal rights and the elimination of traditional practices like Female Genital Mutilation. As a consequence, an Islamic/Muslim Brotherhood labelled Sara as anti-Islamic and she suffered on-going persecution and abuse from this group and from the state authorities. One of her sons was kidnapped by an extremist group in 2007 and Sara’s other children were pursued and injured by members of the same group. Sara and her family were forced to leave their village in order to secure their son’s release.  She and her family tried to re-locate within different cities in Egypt five times, but were pursued.

The family fled to the UK and Sara claimed asylum in January 2010,  Sara’s husband had been stopped at the airport in Cairo and she has not seen him since.  She does not know where her husband is now. When she came to Justice First she was in a state of great distress because her asylum claim had been refused and she was terrified of what might happen if she was forced to return to Egypt.  We referred Sara for counselling with Freedom from Torture. Through the patient nurturing of our Case Worker who also spoke Arabic, we were able to help Sara find a solicitor who put together a fresh asylum application and won the case.

Sara is now happily settled in Middlesbrough, where her children are achieving high academic standards at school and college, while she is volunteering and hoping eventually to return to teaching.