Foreign criminals could be banned from claiming countries like Greece are unsafe for deportation

Foreign criminals face being barred from making “spurious” asylum claims that countries like Greece are unsafe for deportation, a minister has warned.

Chris Philp, the immigration minister, signalled a crackdown on foreign asylum claimants who exploit Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights to avoid being deported to “safe” countries like Greece by claiming they face “inhuman and degrading” treatment.

He told the Commons that the Government was looking to tighten definitions of inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3, which is widely used by human rights lawyers for asylum claimants and criminals to avoid their deportation.

“I believe that a combination of domestic legislation on the process, the systems and some definitions will make it harder for foreign national offenders to unreasonably prevent their deportation,” he told MPs.

The changes will be part of a forthcoming Sovereign Borders Bill, due in the next six weeks, which will also prevent foreign criminals making repeat and "vexatious" claims through the courts in an effort to delay their deportation.

The move to reform what Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, says is a “broken” asylum system follows high-profile controversies like the failed deportation of 23 criminals including a murderer, rapists and drug dealers on a flight to Jamaica after human rights appeals.

Ms Patel accused Labour MPs and “do-gooding” celebrities of insulting Windrush victims by likening the treatment of the Jamaican rapists, murderers and thugs to their treatment since they came to Britain in the 1950s.

Home Office figures show that three foreign criminals a week are successfully challenging their deportations on human rights grounds. Of 455 successful appeals against deportation by foreign national offenders in 2018, 172 relied on human rights grounds.

Mr Philp was responding to an adjournment debate by former minister Simon Clarke who cited the case of an Afghan asylum seeker who used Article 3 to successfully appeal his deportation to Greece on the basis of the poor living conditions he would face.

“To say that Greece is an unacceptable place to which to be returned goes so far beyond what the convention authors would have imagined as inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment as to be almost unbelievable,” said Mr Clarke.

“But it has established a principle and opened the doors still wider for those seeking to overturn deportation orders across the continent, including in this country.”

He urged the Government to tighten legal definitions such as “inhuman” and “degrading” to “strengthen the Home Office’s defence against judicial activism” by lawyers using it to fight deportation of foreign criminals.

Mr Philp said the new Bill would enable the Government to “take action in this area and to legislate to make the legal process clearer.” “Where we can tighten various definitions in statute , we certainly intend to,” he said.

He added: “One problem we face is that foreign national offenders can raise repeated challenges, often strung out over many years. Many of these challenges are vexatious or totally without merit, yet they can make these challenges again and again to frustrate their deportation.

“So the legal system is not working as cleanly and effectively as it should, and we do plan to legislate in the very near future to fix that issue.”

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