Tories vow to abolish immigration tribunals and strip judges of asylum powers
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp has vowed to abolish immigration tribunals as part of plans to be announced by the Conservatives.
He said decisions on immigration should be taken away from judges and given to the Home Office with legal aid removed for immigration cases.
Ahead of a speech at a Policy Exchange event on Tuesday, Mr Philp said: “I believe radical and sweeping change is needed to end dominance by the courts and restore democratic control over illegal immigration and deportation.
“The truth is that politicians are not properly in control of the system when it comes to illegal immigration. The courts are.
“Only radical action will return control over the immigration system to Parliament and democratically elected ministers.”
He said decisions made by the Home Office would have a “quick internal appeal process” with judicial reviews only if the Government acts “outside its statutory powers”.
“If I were home secretary, I would use these freedoms to ensure we deport all illegal immigrants within a week of arrival and deport all foreign criminals,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
He described the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as “well-intentioned but vaguely worded”, saying court interpretations of its articles had become “absurd” and prevent the deportation of “illegal immigrants and foreign criminals”.
He said “tinkering” with the system would not solve the problem and argued that the UK needs to leave the ECHR, as well as repeal the Human Rights Act.
His comments come as figures show the UK asylum appeals backlog has hit a new record high and is now more than seven times the level it was a decade ago.
There were 87,450 cases in the system at the end of March, up 72% from 50,976 a year earlier. It stood at 11,660 in the same period in 2016, when current records began.
Data published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) showed more than a third (40%) of appeals were successful between January and March this year.
This is down from 43% in the same period last year.
The average waiting time to clear an asylum appeal was 67 weeks, the MoJ said, up from 54 weeks in the same three-month period at the start of last year.
Technology & Business Editor
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