Introduction
Before I moved to Westminster Abbey, I used to live near an
Immigration Detention Centre. Three years ago, just before
Christmas, I heard there was no priest working at the Chaplaincy.
That meant there was no priest to preside at the Eucharist, which
is the central act of Christian worship. I was teaching during
the week but free at weekends, so I offered to help. The offer
was accepted, and within a few days I was going in to the Chapel
daily to take services and to talk to the asylum seekers. The
Chapel was an old lecture room, with plain furnishings and
nothing other than a wooden cross to mark it out as a place of
prayer. In the weeks I ministered at that Detention Centre, I
found myself pitched into an abyss of human suffering far beyond
anything I had ever experienced. Daily, I was hearing from deeply
troubled people of the imprisonment and beatings and torture from
which they had fled, of the terror they had experienced as they
gave themselves up on arrival in Britain, and of their relief
that at last they were safe. What they did not know, but I knew,
was that they were passing through the Centre on a 'fast-track'
procedure for those with a 'manifestly unfounded' claim to
asylum. Almost without exception they were refused asylum within
days of arriving here.
After about three weeks, in something of a state of shock
myself, I went away to a monastery for a short ecumenical
conference. I wanted to buy an icon for the Chapel, but did not
have much money. There was a selection of fine icons but few that
were sufficiently large and sufficiently cheap. The monk who ran
the shop showed me a copy of the well-known Rublev icon which
depicts three angels in a circle round a table, leaving a space
to invite the viewer in. I had been praying that I might find the
right icon. The Rublev icon doesn't show Jesus and doesn't show
Mary, so I was very unsure it would be right for the Chapel.
Then, suddenly, the monk said to me, 'You know the Greek name for
this icon, don't you?' I said I didn't. I had always thought of
it as an icon of the Trinity. 'What is it?' I asked. '
Philoxenia', he replied - and in that instant I knew this
was the icon for the Chapel - because
philoxeniameans love of the foreigner, or, quite simply,
‘hospitality'. 'Do not neglect to show hospitality -
philoxenia- to strangers', says the New Testament, 'for
thereby some have entertained angels unawares' (Heb 13:2).
Immigration, Asylum and Human
Rights
When I proposed
Faith in Asylumas the subject for this lecture, I had no
idea how topical it would be. My intention was not - and is not -
political provocation. It is to bring to the debate about asylum
a perspective that first became clear to me in the chapel of the
Detention Centre: the perspective of those who have come to
Britain as a country in which they can be safe, a country which
will give them a fair hearing when make their claim for asylum. I
speak, not as an asylum seeker, though after the Russian
Revolution my father's family found asylum in this country; I
speak as a Christian pastor and a theologian. I hope, however,
that what I have to say will contribute to the political debate
because it will help to define the theological ground on which
the Churches stand. I have no doubt that Charles Gore, if he were
with us today, would, from his deep knowledge of the Christian
tradition, his compassion for the needy, and his commitment to
social justice, be speaking out on just this issue.
The wider issue of immigration to this country should not be
confused with the narrower issue of asylum. Certainly, there is
an area of overlap between the two, as a proportion of immigrants
are refugees who have sought and been given asylum. Most
immigrants are, however, voluntary migrants. Refugees are
involuntary migrants. The issue of asylum is the issue of refuge
from persecution, and the person who qualifies for asylum is the
person who has what the 1951 Refugee Convention calls 'a
well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or
political opinion'.
Given this important difference between immigration generally
and asylum in particular, I do not intend in this lecture to
discuss immigration policy as a whole, but only what is,
in terms of numbers, a minor issue. As I read the latest
Home Office figures, net immigration in 2003 was about 150,000.
In that year some 50,000 people applied for asylum and some
26,000 were granted either indefinite leave to remain or
humanitarian protection. Of the net immigrants in that year about
one sixthwere people who received asylum. It looks as
though the number of applications for asylum in 2004 will be down
on the previous year. The number receiving refugee status may
then be less than one sixth of net immigrants. Compared with net
immigration and the much larger numbers of those who come here on
work permits, refugee numbers are relatively small.
From the point of view of the major world faiths, however, the
way we treat this needy minority is a test of the health of the
whole of our society. For Jews, Christians and Muslims,
hospitality and compassion are defining human virtues which
indicate whether or not a person and a society reflects the
hospitality and compassion of God. You may recall the way in
which, during the US military campaign in Iraq, Private Jessica
Lynch of the US Army, was injured and in need of medical help.
She was taken to an Iraqi hospital, and, despite the scarcity of
medical resources, given first-class care and treatment before
being reunited with her compatriots. That was a striking example
of the way in which the obligation to show hospitality is
interpreted by ordinary Muslims today.
It is not, of course, only religious believers who share this
commitment to human beings in need. The Human Rights Movement of
the second half of the Twentieth Century, which now unites
believers and non-believers, came out of the general shock at
what had been allowed to happen to the Jews: how, in the middle
of supposedly civilised Europe, Jews had been systematically
persecuted and deprived of human dignity, so that Hitler's 'Final
Solution' in the end became 'thinkable' to ordinary men and
women. The Jews, the Roma and others were victims of persecution
on the grounds of their race, their religion, their membership of
particular social groups. They could not turn to the state for
protection because the state itself was their persecutor. When
they looked to other states for the protection they needed, many
were refused. Britain has a mixed record in this respect:
substantial numbers of refugees from Hitler's Germany were
accepted and went on to make a remarkable contribution in British
public life, but there are also shameful stories of Jews being
turned away. It was in a spirit of shock, penitence, and shame
after the Holocaust, and in the confident hope that such things
should never be allowed to happen again, that the United Nations
was born, and the major nations signed up to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the Convention Relating to
the Status of Refugees (1951) and other major human rights
instruments. Britain signed up fully to these ground-breaking
declarations, as it has done to the European Convention on Human
Rights which was taken into UK law in 1998.
Charles Gore
Charles Gore's prophetic ministry was at its height about a
hundred years ago. He was a Canon of Westminster from 1895 to
1902. From Westminster he went on to become Bishop of Worcester,
then the first Bishop of Birmingham, and, finally, Bishop of
Oxford. He became a towering and controversial figure within the
Church of England, and the outstanding theological thinker of his
time. Gore's most significant
writingwas in the field of Christian doctrine, where he
maintained a robust belief in traditional Christian teaching, but
much of his most significant
actionwas in support of those we would today call the
oppressed or the marginalised. At the end of his life, a friend
wrote, 'I have never known his profound humility to fail; nor his
passion for righteousness; nor his eager championship of the
"poor and oppressed"'.
Before Gore came to Westminster Abbey, he had already founded
the Christian Social Union, an early Christian Socialist
initiative which aimed to study 'how to apply the moral truths
and principles of Christianity to the social and economic
conditions of modern times' [Prestige: 92]. Not long after, he
founded the Community of the Resurrection, which continues today
at Mirfield in Yorkshire. The best-known member of the Community,
after Gore, was perhaps Trevor Huddleston, who, in the spirit of
Gore, opposed the apartheid regime in South Africa as an affront
to the human dignity of black South Africans. Huddleston in his
turn provided inspiration for the young Desmond Tutu, who went on
to train at Mirfield with the Community that Gore founded. Tutu's
work as Chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission has been an inspiration whereever people work to
overcome the legacy of hatred and mistrust left by regimes that
abuse human rights. I have no doubt that our topic tonight does
honour to the memory of Charles Gore, who saw Westminster Abbey
both as a place to explore the riches of the Christian Faith and
to explore how the Faith relates to the urgent problems of the
day.
The Christian Tradition
Gore's own inspiration, as is clear from his many books, came
from the Christian tradition, which, in its care for the
oppressed and the needy, builds on the Jewish teaching of the Law
and the prophets. Gore often stressed his debt to the social
teaching of the Old Testament. For example, The Book of
Deuteronomy, one of the books of the Jewish Law, reminds the
Israelites that they, who were once exiles in a foreign land,
should have a special care for exiles, or sojourners, in their
midst:
'The Lord your God is God of Gods and Lord of lords, the
great, the mighty, and terrible God, who is not partial and takes
no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow
[that is, those who need protection], and loves the
sojourner[that is the resident exile], giving food and
clothing. Love the
sojournertherefore; for you were
sojournersin the land of Egypt.' (Dt 10:17-19)
The prophets frequently return to similar themes of social
inclusion. I take just one example taken from the set reading for
next Sunday:
'Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, … and
do no wrong or violence to
the alien, the fatherless and the widow.' (Jer
22:3)
This teaching of the Law and the prophets is expanded and
reinforced by Jesus, who describes the Judgment at the end of
time, when 'all the nations' - not just Christians - will be
gathered before the Son of Man. There are those who are judged
favourably and those who are judged unfavourably. The reason some
are judged favourably is because 'I was hungry and you gave me
food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and
you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and
you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Those who
are judged favourably are surprised at this, because they weren't
conscious of anything they did specifically for him, and he
replies, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least
of these ... you did it to me.' (Mt 25: 35:40). Passages such as
this show why Christians feel it is not merely a duty to help
those who are in particular need, but, more than that, an
inestimable privilege.
In this former Benedictine Abbey, it is good to recall how the
Rule of Benedict speaks about the virtue of hospitality: 'All who
arrive as guests are to be welcomed like Christ, for he is going
to say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me." The Abbot should
give all the guests water to wash their hands and with the whole
community he should wash their feet. When they have done so, they
should recite the verse, "We have received your mercy, O God, in
the midst of your temple." (
RuleLIII). As Mother Theresa so often stressed, it is in
the midst of the most extreme human need that we meet Jesus
Christ in new and unexpected ways.
Given this background, it is not surprising that both the Old
and New Testaments of the Bible focus in various ways on the
issue of asylum. In the Jewish Law (Numbers 35) it is prescribed
that six 'cities of refuge' should be established. This provision
was made to stop people killing each other in prolonged
vendettas. These cities were places to which anyone who killed
another person had could flee. There could then be a proper
investigation to decide whether the killing was deliberate or
accidental. If it was deliberate, the killer would be punished as
a murderer. If it was accidental the killer could receive asylum
in the city of refuge. It was on this basis that, in the Middle
Ages, Abbeys throughout England, including Westminster Abbey,
were established as places of 'sanctuary' for those in need of
refuge. They were regarded rather as we would regard a foreign
embassy: they were under a different jurisdiction, in this case
the jurisdiction of God's Church.
The practice of sanctuary was, however, abused. It became
increasingly unpopular because it attracted criminals rather than
refugees to the Abbey precincts. In the early seventeenth century
it was abolished, and the state became in effect the sole arbiter
of personal safety. Though there were waves of immigrants coming
to Britain as a result of persecution abroad, such as the
Huguenots and Jews from Eastern Europe, not until twentieth
century did the provision of asylum for foreign nationals become
the explicit responsibility of the state. Even today the Church
can play its part in the provision of sanctuary when, with other
partners, it holds the state to account for its stewardship of
the right to asylum.
For Christians, that which is inviolable is not primarily the
holy place. That which is inviolable, and for the sake of which
certain places have in the past been regarded as inviolable, is
that which only God can give- life itself. This applies
not only to human life but to the whole fragile, living world
which we share with all other living creatures. A
religiously-grounded wonder at the gift of life and the sense
that human life ultimately belongs to God alone, is the reason
why Christians struggle with issues of abortion and euthanasia,
with slavery and the death penalty, and, of course, with the
notion of human rights. Christians have had a lot to learn over
the years, but at the root of our social concern is the
conviction that human life and human society are fundamentally
God's gift and that we are accountable to God for the way we use
that gift: that is to say, we are responsible to God for the
common good. One way of looking at the challenge of being a
Christian is to say that it is all about learning what it means
truly to be a human being. Gore put it this way:
'Each creature - inanimate, animate, rational - should
find its joy in realising its own function - that is, in being
the thing it is meant to be, in experiencing the joy proper to
itself, and in seeing all the other creatures realising all their
separate functions, while all together contribute to a common
end.' [
Prayer and the Lord's Prayer62].
The Problem
My concern tonight, then, is for a relatively small number of
people within our society who are involuntary exiles from their
own country, many of whom are daily denied what is needed 'to be
the thing - or the person - we are meant to be'. In many cases
these people have come to Britain to find themselves disbelieved,
denied the possibility of working, kept waiting for months and
years and then finally refused. They have often been detained
behind barbed wire, and threatened with deportation back to the
country and the security forces from which they fled. One of the
most corrosive and undermining experiences for someone who has
escaped persecution, especially for those who have suffered rape,
imprisonment and torture, is to be told by officialdom that their
story - their own, personal human narrative -lacks credibility;
in other words, that they are lying. To a person who has suffered
the loss of home, torture or rape, this assault on their human
identity can make it almost impossible to function.
Sleeplessness, nightmares, depression and loss of confidence are
endemic amongst asylum seekers.
Time and again I have heard asylum seekers ask the agonised
and outraged question, 'How can this immigration official, or
that Adjudicator, or the Secretary of State, with his or her
limited experience of my country, so confidently dismiss not only
what I say,
but who I am?' As anyone who has worked closely with
asylum seekers will surely testify, one of the fundamental needs
through the months and years of the asylum process is to help
such people hold on to the sense of their own identity which gets
eaten away by the system in a way they may never have experienced
even at the hands of physical torturers.
In the present situation, where we have a political auction to
buy the sympathies of voters by talking tough about asylum
seekers, the churches have a key role to play - reminding
politicians of all parties that asylum seekers are people too,
and that there are many within the electorate who wish to welcome
them hospitably. The announcement of yet more tough measures,
such as increased numbers of detentions, creates waves of fear
and insecurity amongst this already traumatised group. The
vicious rhetoric against asylum seekers from some sections of the
popular press causes immense distress; but so too do Government
announcements which may be aimed at the press and completely
misunderstood by frightened asylum seekers.
The question of Britain's withdrawal from the 1951 Convention
on Refugees, and the 1967 Protocol that extends its remit to the
present day, has been raised and will no doubt continue to be
discussed. If we were to withdraw from the 1951 Convention, the
giving of asylum to individuals and groups would in effect become
discretionary. It would be a matter of the numbers we chose to
take, not the right of those who came here to claim asylum. Under
any quota system, the numbers who were granted asylum would be
subject to political pressure. We would probably be turning
people away, saying, 'We know you may need asylum, but we are not
prepared to give it to you here as we have used up our quota for
this year.' The 1951 Refugee Convention has proved a powerful
instrument for saving lives and protecting people from
persecution. Before we can begin to think of withdrawing from a
human rights instrument which has proved so valuable a force for
good we need to know exactly what is going to be put in its
place. Though the Refugee Convention was drafted at a time when
the understanding of 'a well-founded fear of persecution' was
markedly different from that of today, it is hard to see what
could be put in its place which could come anywhere near it as an
effective human rights instrument.
One of the reasons people come to Britain for asylum is
because they admire this country as a parliamentary democracy
with a long tradition of civil peace. There is a respect for
Britain's commitment to human rights and 'fair play' and
international communications with Britain are good. Often there
are links through the English language, through family or
national groups, The fact that people, who may know very little
about the reality of Britain today or what asylum means, should
turn to Britain in their hour of need is in itself a kind of
compliment - a compliment that, when I read the popular press or
see how asylum seekers are treated by the system, too often seems
undeserved.
Nevertheless, there are aspects of the asylum system of which
we should be genuinely proud. Though it is subject to heavy
political pressure, to which it responds with suspicious agility,
as with the recent pledge to cut the number of asylum seekers in
half, it remains subject to the rule of law and it still remains,
though in a worryingly attenuated sense, subject to judicial
oversight. We maintain a legal mechanism by which each person's
claim to asylum is tested, though in practice it is only where
lawyers are working
pro bonoor for charities that asylum seekers can be
confident of receiving adequate, competent legal support. The
amount of legal aid now made available simply doesn't allow for
cases to be thoroughly researched and well presented. Though the
initial decision-making is overwhelmingly negative, in the end a
substantial number of these negative decisions is overturned -
but always after a prolonged period of stress for the asylum
seeker and considerable expense all round. Though the
administration of the NASS system for supporting asylum seekers
is often chaotic, and it can prove hard to get attention for
particular practical problems and needs, there is at least a
system which should in theory provide support when asylum seekers
are not permitted to work. The appalling Section 55, which meant
that substantial numbers of asylum seekers were totally
destitute, was thankfully overruled by the House of Lords- a
further testimony to the importance of keeping the whole system
under judicial not political control.
I have to say that I have never heard any political leader, or
indeed anyone in the public domain say that they are
proudof Britain's recent asylum policy, and I think this
should give us cause for thought. Time and again the tone in
which new measures are introduced is reactive and negative. It
must be incredibly dispiriting to operate a system which seems
determined to find reasons not to grant asylum and so is
permeated by a ‘culture of disbelief'.
In recent years the churches have made significant
contributions that have helped to turn round public policy on
inner city regeneration, and on unemployment and the availability
of 'good work' for all. Amongst the churches there is a wealth of
first-hand knowledge of the experience of asylum seekers at every
stage of the process, often including first-hand knowledge of the
countries from which they come. The churches have a unique
contribution to make when political leaders give ground to the
vitriolic hostility towards asylum seekers in some sections of
the popular press, - perhaps because this hostility is reflected
back to them by focus groups. The churches have a duty to speak
out for the pride we should take in the human rights instruments
that we have and for the absolute necessity of sticking by them
if our own humanity as hospitable human beings is not to be
diminished. The churches can also contribute to public debate
about reforms to the asylum system by ensuring that the voices of
the real experts - the refugees who have come through the system
- receive a hearing.
The Proposal
My proposal is that we need to look for ways to assess and to
rethink the asylum system from the point of view of ‘faith in
asylum'. This is by no means new territory. Recently, the Asylum
Rights Campaign, a coalition of all the major organisations
working with asylum seekers, from Amnesty International to the
United Nations Association, produced an in-depth study of the
British asylum system, called
Providing Protection in the Twenty First Century.Its first
recommendation was that
An independent panel should carry out a comprehensive and
systematic review of the whole asylum system, based on an
objective evaluation of the evidence taken from all parties
involved. [ARC 2004: 6]
This is exactly what I am arguing for. It is the sort of work
that is done by Royal Commissions, whose whole function is to
assemble the evidence on an issue, take it out of the political
domain, and make well thought-through recommendations which serve
the common good. The ARC recommendation goes on to say:
Any reform, premised on the panel's conclusion, should
refocus efforts to establish clearer and simpler procedures,
which concentrate on well-resourced, quality initial
decision-making, undertaken with the upholding of international
human rights law as its primary concern. [ARC 2004:6]
Much in line with this, the Church of England General Synod
called last year for its own study of issues surrounding asylum.
It asked for a study of the arguments which have been advanced to
provide 'a more positive approach to asylum seekers'. This study
is now complete and will be published, I gather, in May. This is
just the time to be asking what will be the next steps for the
Church of England with its ecumenical partners and colleagues in
other faith-communities.
Last week, by contrast, the Government published its own
document outlining what it called its five year strategy for
asylum and immigration. Significantly, the paper is called
Controlling Our Borders: Making Migration Work for
Britain.This is not at all the wide-ranging review of the
asylum system that we need. There is no detailed discussion to
show on what the strategy is based. As far as asylum is
concerned, there is simply a sketch of the next steps in the
campaign against what is seen as abuse of the system. The
fundamental commitment remains that what are called 'genuine
refugees' will be allowed to stay and there is a promise to take
some 'genuine refugees' from their regions - but, as I read it,
there is not one single clear measure or proposal to give
applicants a better chance to establish their right to asylum.
Instead, there is talk of possible return to countries of origin
after up to five years' Exceptional Leave to Remain;
fingerprinting all visa applicants; expanding the work of Airline
Liaison Officers to prevent undocumented passengers reaching the
UK; detaining more (I quote) 'failed asylum seekers'; introducing
fast-track processing of (I quote) 'unfounded asylum seekers';
creating more detention capacity and the use of electronic
tagging'; preventing applicants concealing their identity to
frustrate removal; continuing to prosecute those who arrive
without documents; fingerprinting people from (I quote) 'high
risk' countries on arrival; working with countries that generate
the most 'failed asylum seekers' to ensure they re-document and
accept back 'failed asylum seekers' (this would, in recent years,
have meant working with Afghanistan, Iran and Zimbabwe);
expanding the voluntary returns schemes; maximising returns to
'safe countries' and finding ways to return unaccompanied asylum
seeking children. The whole package presupposes an unquestioned
faith in the asylum system to determine who is a genuine refugee
and who is not. It is this underlying faith which I am arguing
needs to be tested:
we have to know to what extent the system currently fails the
very people who trust it with their lives, and what can be done
to reform it.
So, what would an asylum system premised on faith in asylum
look like?
First, it would address the causes why people seek asylum. It
would look for positive linkage between development and the
prevention of involuntary migration, as with the excellent recent
report of the House of Commons International Development
Committee on
Migration and Development. All of this must link with our
commitment to the UN and the strengthening of its work in
peacemaking and development. In this general area the wider issue
of migration overlaps very much with the narrower issue of
asylum. It is important that Britain's policy over asylum is
developed in harmony with its policy over development - that the
Home Office and the Foreign Office work closely with DFID.
Second, it would recognise the survival skills and political
courage that are to be found amongst asylum seekers. It would ask
searching questions about the number of people with a genuine
claim to asylum who are prevented from travelling to Britain in
the first place. Inevitably, some put themselves in the hands of
traffickers - an act which in itself makes it unlikely they will
be able successfully to claim asylum.
Third, a system that had 'faith in asylum' would address the
very serious concerns there are over the quality of initial
decision making, a point on which the House of Commons
Constitutional Affairs Committee did not mince its words when it
reported on
Asylum and Immigration Appealsin February 2004. It would
approach initial interviews in a positive spirit, not so much
seeking to catch applicants out, but to establish as fully as
possible what are the relevant facts of the case. It would give
applicants time and resources to assemble the evidence they need,
especially medical reports; it would be scrupulous about the
quality of interpreters; it would approach the all-important
question of credibility in a manner that is well-informed about
the scientific, philosophical, cross-cultural and psychological
issues that surround this most difficult issue - on the handling
of which may hand a person's life. At the moment, proper scrutiny
of the individual case comes only at the appeal stage - that is,
if the appeal is properly prepared and presented. When things
have gone wrong for the applicant in the initial stages it is
almost impossible to recover from this legally.
A reformed system would work throughout with the best
available Country Information, presenting it in an unbiased way.
The Immigration Advisory Service has been monitoring the quality
of the country reports on which decisions are made. In its review
of the 2004 Reports, whilst it recognised that there have been
improvements, it concluded that serious problems remain. I quote:
'The most significant of these is a lack of objectivity. At times
this involves the direct insertion by the CIPU author of opinion
into the text, at other times it is by way of an unbalanced
representation of material from selected sources. Other notable
concerns include the poor presentation of the reports which
allows contradictory material to stand without comment,
over-reliance on one source of material, serious omissions and
poor sourcing. In some cases, these problems are so serious that
they make the report an inaccurate representation of the
conditions in the country to the extent that, in our opinion, it
should not be used in determining asylum claims.' The question of
establishing a non-political body to provide unbiased country
reports which fully acknowledge their sources urgently needs
further examination.
Fifth, a system with 'faith in asylum' would provide proper
legal support. Current caps on legal aid mean it is almost
impossible for lawyers to make a living by good immigration work
- and the result of bad work is not only poor decisions that
cannot be trusted, but yet more legal work to fight against poor
decisions. It is absolutely crucial that there should be
confidence in the quality of decision-making - something which
under present conditions it is just not possible to have.
Sixth, it would minimise use of detention, especially for
children. Asylum seekers know very well that if they do not
report to police stations or immigration authorities as directed,
sooner or later they will be caught. The use of detention always
causes huge suffering, which is particularly shocking in the case
of those who have already been traumatised by imprisonment in
their own country. Overshadowing detention in what are now called
Removal Centres, is the fear of imminent deportation, and of what
will happen when one is handed over to the authorities in one's
own country. There is an urgent need to review the use of
detention as an instrument of policy - if for no other reason
than on grounds of expense alone..
Seventh, a system with 'faith in asylum' would not leave
people in limbo for months and years after refusal. The tragedy
is that those who support asylum seekers time and again find
themselves fighting deportation because we believe that the
system has failed them, but there is no way back into the system
to get a fresh examination of the case. I return to the first
point: central to any review based on 'faith in asylum' must be a
rigorous analysis of the quality of decision-making, especially
initial decision-making. And, as a rider, a system that respected
human dignity would never use in official documents the
pejorative term 'failed asylum seeker'. The judicial process is
not an examination. The correct term, surely, is 'refused asylum
seekers'.
There is a great deal more I would like to say about the
asylum process but I have run out of time. At the moment I
believe it is expensive, inefficient and inhumane and too often
leaves one with a sick feeling that it has not come to the right
decision. It has, however, not been my aim in this lecture to
offer a blueprint for a reformed asylum system. I do believe,
however, that the churches have their distinctive part to play in
working for such reform to come about. What we need is an
independent Commission that can review the whole system in a
non-political way. This is not something the churches can or
should undertake on their own. What they
cando is to act as a catalyst, working with
representatives of other faith-communities, to bring into being
an independent Commission which has the standing and expertise to
review the whole working of the asylum system from the point of
view of 'faith in asylum'. This Commission should take evidence,
including evidence from refugees, and should review the asylum
system in a non-political way, making practical suggestions for
its reform in the service of the common good, which is to say our
common humanity. I hope that in this way people of faith in
Humanity and faith in God can work together for a thoroughly
reformed system that is based upon a commitment to human rights
and a commitment to the practice of hospitality.
Conclusion
Over the West door of Westminster Abbey are the statues of ten
'twentieth century martyrs' from all round the world. One of them
is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spoke out early against Hitler's
persecution of the Jews and who eventually went to his death for
his active opposition to Hitler's regime. In accounting for the
stand he had taken, he used to quote a verse from Proverbs:
Open your mouth for the dumb
For the rights of all who are left desolate
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
Maintain the rights of the poor and needy. (Prov
31:8-9)
Emboldened by the example of Bonhoeffer, and of my predecessor
as a Canon of Westminster, Charles Gore, I have tried tonight to
'open my mouth' for the rights of many, whose courage and faith I
admire very much, and who have been left desolate, not only in
their own societies, but also in ours. I am very conscious that
the matter of 'judging righteously' is not for one individual to
determine. This is something to work at together, because the
command to 'maintain the rights of the poor and needy' is a
command to us all. We are together called to have 'faith in
asylum'.
References
Asylum Rights Campaign,
Providing Protection in the Twenty First century(London:
Asylum Rights Campaign, 2004)
Carpenter, J.,
Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholic Thought(London: Faith
Press, 1960)
Controlling Our Borders; Making Migration Work for Britain,
Five Year Strategy for Asylum and Immigration(Cm 6472,
2005)
Gore, C.,
Christ and Society(London: Allen and Unwin, 1928)
Gore, C.,
Prayer and the Lord's Prayer(London: Wells Gardner,
Darton, 1906)
House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee,
Asylum and Immigration
Appeals(HC 211-1, 2004)
House of Commons International Development Committee:
Migration and Development: How to Make Migration Work for
Poverty Reduction(HC 79-1, 2004)
House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights:
Fourteenth Report
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200304/jtselect/jtrights/130/13002.htm(accessed
15 February 2005)
Immigration Advisory Service, Country Reports Analysis, April
2004
http://www.iasuk.org/C2B/document_tree/ViewACategory.asp?CategoryID=44(accessed
8 February 2005)
Prestige, G.L.,
The Life of Charles Gore(London: Heinemann, 1935)
Refugee Council,
Refugees: Renewing the Vision(London: Refugee Council,
2004)
Stanley, A.P.,
Memorials of Westminster Abbey(London: John Murray,
1896)
The Rule of St Benedict,translated by David Parry OSB
(London: Darton, Longman,and Todd, 1984)