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Top immigration lawyers have told The Guardian that the Home Secretary’s increasingly hostile rhetoric puts them at risk of being targeted and undermining the legal system.
On Sunday, Interior Secretary Priti Patel used a speech at the Conservative Party conference to criticize lawyers defending migrants, directly linking them to smugglers who help asylum seekers cross borders.
Patel said: “Those who are well rehearsed on how to play and profit from the broken system will certainly teach us about their great theories of human rights. Those who defend the broken system – the traffickers, the benefactors, the leftist lawyers, the Labor Party – are defending the indefensible. “
The Lawyers Society has written to the Ministry of the Interior asking them to change the language they are using. President Simon Davis said: “Throwing insults at lawyers runs the risk of leading not only to verbal abuse, but also to lawyers being physically attacked for doing their job … [and] it undermines a legal system that has evolved over many centuries, helping to ensure that power is not abused. “
Attorneys who spoke to The Guardian described how the government’s increasingly hostile rhetoric made them feel insecure for the first time in their careers.
One, a human rights lawyer who did not want to be identified, said: “I am concerned for my safety, I have not been before; other lawyers have told me they are also concerned. “
Stephanie Harrison QC specializes in challenging the detention of vulnerable migrants, including people with mental health problems and survivors of trafficking and torture.
He said the “deliberate” decision by the interior secretary and the government to “turn on” the lawyers was a tactic used by authoritarian states.
“Demonizing the lawyers who represent asylum seekers in the current climate creates the risk that the same lawyers will be attacked and attacked. Home secretaries have criticized lawyers before, but this is a dangerous step further: associating lawyers with abuse of the system.
“It is happening in a climate of extreme xenophobia. Turning to human rights lawyers is what you see in the patterns of abusive behavior in states around the world. When these states move to attack human rights defenders, that’s a really important advance … that undermines the legitimacy of the legal system and the role of lawyers. “
She said the Jo Cox case should inform the practice of the Home Office, adding: “Four years ago, a female MP was assassinated because she was closely associated with supporting refugees and migrants. Any Home Secretary who consciously decides to use such inflammatory language must recognize those risks. “
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said: “Lawyers play an important role in upholding the law and ensuring that people have access to justice, and we are absolutely clear that any form of violence against them is absolutely unacceptable.
“We will continue to return those who have gone through the legal system, had their asylum claim denied and have no legal right to stay in the UK, and we look forward to working with the legal sector to reform our immigration and asylum system.”
In August, the Interior Ministry was criticized after a video released by the department used the phrase “activist lawyers.” The highest-ranking Interior Ministry official later agreed that officials should not have used the phrase.
Toufique Hossaini is Director of Public Law for Duncan Lewis Solicitors. He has recently been involved in attempts to stop charter flights leaving the UK with immigrants who recently arrived in the country after crossing the English Channel. This has made the firm the subject of critical tabloid reports, including a Daily Mail article that said Duncan Lewis was “training ”asylum seekers to say they have been trafficked. A subsequent article highlighted that the company uses public money in the form of legal assistance to provide its services.
Speaking to The Guardian, Hossaini said: “This relentless attack on attorneys who are simply doing their best to represent their clients appropriately and responsibly, in difficult circumstances, is cruel and dangerous. The Home Secretary knows this, but chooses to move on. Maintaining the rule of law is not activism or “left-handed lawyers” frustrating the government. John Locke, the English philosopher, said: “Where law ends, tyranny begins.” This is where we are headed. “
One of the main criticisms of immigration lawyers centers on the claim that, in order to make money from legal aid, they stand in the way of legal attempts to expel migrants who should not be here.
The lawyers said the reality is very different, noting that legal aid pays very little, often leaving lawyers working for free. Research shows that it is often difficult for detained migrants to access a lawyer.
David Pountney, Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, said: “The provision of legal aid for people detained by immigrants is really bad. They are clinics, they are oversubscribed, and many people cannot see an attorney. Many lawyers do not see this type of legal aid work as economically viable. “
If lawyers are undermined, Harrison warned, there would be extreme consequences, not only for lawyers but also for human rights. He noted the emergence of new detention centers as a cause for concern.
“We have new forms of detention, created overnight in areas of the country where there is no close legal support. And where you end up if people don’t have legal access from the start is with Windrush. If they can expel the British who have lived here all their lives, it shows that people must stand up and recognize that lawyers representing disadvantaged groups are doing vital work. You never know when you will need a lawyer. “
