Refugees cannot be deported

The Geneva Convention, to which the UK is a signatory, says that asylum seekers should not be deported to countries where their safety cannot be guaranteed.

In an important ruling involving refugees from Algeria and Somalia, the House of Lords has said that the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, cannot deport asylum seekers to France or Germany because those countries only recognise as refugees individuals persecuted by their own state authorities.

If a refugee who reaches either country is being persecuted within their own state, but not by it, they are

returned to that state even though it has refused to protect them.

R v Secretary of State for

the Home Department ex parte Adan; R v Same, ex parte Aitsegeur, The Times Law Reports 20 December 2000