No second check for asylum claims certified as clearly unfounded

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Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has today announced that it will no longer be necessary for a decision that an asylum or human rights claim is clearly unfounded to be checked by a second caseworker. You can read his written statement to parliament here.

Where an individual is from a designated safe country a claim must be certified as ‘clearly unfounded’ under section 94 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, unless a caseworker finds that there is reason to be satisfied that it is a genuine claim. The Labour government in power in 2002 gave an undertaking that every case that fell into this category would be looked at by two caseworkers, and that there would be additional quality checks.

The current government “believes it is important to have procedures in place to ensure that those who make clearly unfounded human rights and asylum claims are quickly removed from the UK”. Now, only one caseworker is required to review these claims so that “those who have no bases to be in the UK can be swiftly removed”.

The Nationality and Borders Act that came into force last summer already removed the ability to appeal decisions on claims certified as clearly unfounded. But Jenrick stated:

“The Home Office already operates a robust quality assurance framework for non-certified decisions which helps to maintain the quality of case-work decisions and expertise. The specific quality check undertaken for section 94 decisions is no longer necessary, therefore we are improving the assurance process and aligning it with checks adopted on other decisions. Claims certified under section 94 will be regularly reviewed which will ensure that the certification process continues to be applied with careful scrutiny.”